"�m time immemorial caves have attracted man. The unusual .form­ ations, the menacing narrowness and the dim insufficient light become, through the force of imagination, part of a mysterious, almost magical and sometimes sinister whole. There is a natural law in man which dictates that he should strive after knowledge, advance with inquiring mind into new territory, whether it be spiritual or material; and cave research is one element of man's desire to know and understand his environment. Under the Earth's crust there exists an enormously great world where secrets await their unveiling, and speleology is a branch of science which opens up this world to provide revelations of chronological, geological and sociological importance. These underground wonders, however, belong to all men, and after the initial discovery and surveying of caves have been completed, the public at large is entitled to share in the beauties below, even if only to a limited extent."

-W.L. Brennan NSW Department of Tourism

This special issue of AUSTRALIAN NATURAL HI STORY is devoted to various aspects of caves and caving-the field of speleology -in Australia. JUNE 1975 VOLUME 18 NUMBER 6 PUBLISHED QUARTERLY BY THE AUSTRALIAN MUSEUM, 6-8 COLLEGE STREET, SYDNEY AUSTRAUANPRESIDENT, Ml�HAEL PITMAN DIRECTOR, FRANK TALBOTNATURAl HISTORY

'. j' . LIME, LIMESTONE AND THE FIRST CAVES 190 BYE.A. LANE . i://�-•. CLIMBING AND CRAWLING THROUGH SUBTERRANEA 196 % BY ANDREW PAVEY AND NEIL MONTGOMERY f··. .,:.· .,i.. r... · . · . . . ,--,r. . . . . / MINERAL DECORATIONS 196 �·-· . ·. � -� \ , . . NATURES CAVE ART '• .. . .

• BY JULIA M. JAMES •• . t . THE FORMATION AND DEVELOPMENT OF AUSTRALIAN CAVES 204 BY J.N. JENNINGS RECONSTRUCTING THE PAST 208 EXCAVATIONS IN FOSSIL CAVES BY ROD WELLS SPELEOCHRONOLOGY: THE STORY IT TELLS 212 BY CLIFF OLLIER CAVES AND ABORIGINAL MAN 216 COVER: The Grand Fissure BY SANDRA BOWDLER in Exit Cave, Tasmania. ECOSYSTEMS UNDERGROUND 220 (Photo: A. Pavey) BY J.A. HARRIS ABOVE: A helictite in the 'Gem of the South' formation, THE HEAVY HAND OF MODERN MAN 226 Temple of Baal, Jenolan, BY JOHN DUNKLEY AND LUDWIG REIDER NSW.

EDITOR/DESIGNER NANCY SMITH Annual Subscription: $4.50-Australia; $5-New Zealand and New ASSISTANT EDITOR Guinea; $6-other countries. Single copies: $1 ($1.33 posted ROBERT STEWART Australia); $1 .45-New Zealand and New Guinea; $1.70-other CIRCULATION countries. Cheque or money order payable to The Australian Museum should be sent to The Secretary, The Australian Museum, ROYHELM PO Box A285, Sydney South 2001. Overseas subscribers please note EDITORIAL COMMITTEE that rates are to be paid in Australian currency. HAROLD COGGER Opinions expressed by the authors are their own and do not KINGSLEY GREGG necessarily represent the policies or· views of The Australian MICHAEL GRAY Museum. PATRICIA McDONALD

'RECOMMENDED RETML PRICE INTERNATIONAL STANDARD SERIAL NUMBER 0004-9&40 189 LIM�,I LIMESTONE AND THE FIRST CAVES BYE.A. LANE

he foundations of Sydney, and of Australia, began on January 26, 1788 when the first Tparty of soldiers and convicts under Governor Arthur Phillip landed at Sydney Cove to estab­ lish a penal settlement. Within a few months of its establishment, Sydney's buildings were being constructed of brick, suitable clay having been found close to the new town. However, the shortage of lime for mortar was desperate. Only by the slow and laborious process of collecting shells around the shore and burning them could a little lime be produced. In October 1804, Governor Philip King des­ patched an expedition under the Lieutenant­ Governor, Colonel William Paterson, to estab­ lish a settlement at Port Dalrymple, near the mouth of the River Tamar in the north of Van Dieman's Land (Tasmania). In his first report to Governor King at the end of December 1804, Paterson told of the discovery, among other building materials, of abundant quantities of limestone in the area­ "a boon hitherto denied the Territory". This first discovery of limestone in Australia was most important as lime could now be produced in Ta'smania and shipped to Sydney. However, limestone had still to be discovered on the main­ land, and a generation of explorers to come made a point of reporting all such occurrences. The records tell us of the first limestone dis­ coveries in Australia, but what were the first cave areas reported? Which was the first cave actually discovered? Despite considerable documentation, the evidence allows substantial room for speculation. The lines of exploration relevant to our investigation lie south and west of Sydney. On March 3. 1818, a party of explorers led by the surgeon and explorer Charles Throsby and surveyor James Meehan, set out from Liver­ pool, near Sydney, in the hope of discovering an overland route to Jervis Bay. The young explorer, Hamilton Hume, not yet 21 years old, accompanied the party at the request of Gov­ ernor Lachlan Macquarie because of his Watercolour previous journeys of exploration to the Berrima of Wombeyan Caves, painted in 1872 by Conrad E.A. LANE, Director of Information Services, Aus­ Martens-from tralian Atomic Energy Commission, is a member of the original paint­ several speleological associations and Editor of ing in The Dixson Helictite, the Jo urnal of Australasian Cave Research. Galleries, Sydney.

VOLUME 18 NUMBER 6 191 district and beyond. On March 25, finding having been informed by a settler that br confronted with the gorges of_ !he of th_e _Shoalhaven River n h themselves was nearby, he\ � c Marulan, the exped1t1on to v1s1t the area especia ecide Shoalhaven River near lly as he w d o I d Pa divided into two parties. Throsby went over "a curiously perforated ss Ca� areo downstream and managed to find his way to Country - the limestone extending � us N �t Jervis Bay. Meehan and Hume worked upstream to the great Ravines of the erly above-�en � 1 (south) along the high land west of the river." 0ned Shoalhaven. Describing_ the visit, he said: "We foun whether the point of division land exceeding cavernous, d th e It is uncertain orifices fou area of r fe et reached by the explorers in this wild diameter connected with capacio . us SUb- towering limestone cliffs and narrow ravines terranean E xcavat ions, appeared in every Part bordering the Shoalhaven River was in the vicin­ of the Forestland, of whom som . e presen t ity of Jerrara Creek or Bungonia Creek. Suffice yawning. f 1ssure� of app�rently ed great de th to say that they were in limestone country and whilst others again _had the1�.ap p ertures or mouth the way had been opened for the early discovery nearly closed up with earth . He continued th of the Bungonia Caves. their local guide conducted a t the party to a lar In November 1820, Governor Macquarie cavern. Bei_ng without lights . , they did n�� issued an order permitting graziers to take their venture far inside but were still able to see th cattle to the Marulan district with tickets of abrupt and perpendicular chasm in what is no: occupation. However, because of delays, the known as the Drum Cave. earliest permits were not granted until 1822. Although first written record of the Photograph Areas were soon occupied around the present Bungonia Caves is dated Apri I 27, 1824, the ca of a steam­ township of Bungonia and along the heights ves obvious­ driven electric ly were discovered before that, perhap flanking Bungonia Creek, the nearest property s as early dynamo in the as 1819 or 1820. In May 1823, Captain Grand Arch, being only a short distance from the present Mark Currie, R.N., (army) Captain John Jenolan Caves, Caves Reserve. Ovens and NSW, taken in 1886. bushman Joseph Wild set out from Bong The first report of a cave exploration at Bong This electric near Moss Vale for the country south of plant is believed Bungonia was made by the botanist and explor­ Lake George. They crossed the Limestone Plains to be one of the er, Allan Cunningham, while returning from a (the world's first perm­ early name for the pastoral land near the Journey south of Lake George. He wrote in anent installations Molonglo and Queanbeyan Rivers where out­ sed for lighting caves. his journal under the date April 27, 1824 that, crops of limestone occur) and finally discovered the Monaro Plains. On the return journey, they discovered 'London Bridge', south of the present town of Queanbeyan. Here Burra Creek has cut through a belt of exposed limestone toform "a natural bridge of one perfect Saxon arch". In October 1824, an exploration party con­ sisting of Hamilton Hume, retired sea captain William Hilton Hovell and six other men set outfrom Hume's station near the present town of Gunning to travel overland from the settled areas of New South Wales to Bass Strait. They proceeded on a southwesterly course n across the south of the present tow plains , ' of Yass later naming them the M Douga ll s Plains f;om the family name of Lady Brisbane, area wife of the Governor, though calli ng t�e r al. by The Aboriginal name "Yarrh" in their iou � tin_ They crossed the Murrumbidgee, no � ssi · frequent occurrences of large outcrops of fo . . hwest, re· 1ferous limestone, continue· d sout . es, this joining the Murrumbidgee after some mil the opposi te time noting high limestone cliffs on n betwee bank. (This area probably 1•ies nrnued Goodhope and Narrangullen.) They c� \ · eno d callY for some days on a 21 -zag ourse ' p � � October mentioning limestone 1n their n tes. � be the 28, they reached what I believe �� Y HISTOR NATURA L AUSTRALIAN . ' .;. . . ,,t,i\''l\')!;>.,4',;�1!:o )CJ:slll.G;,g ll'll' C,,.T:i<l.);11' • 'fll?l!ll�ll.ti0.1'G'll'-,»' 'l'JliX,lJ,'J&�... •• ..,.

Phn1o EA lane Goodradigbee River valley, a few miles up­ from Bathurst south to near the Abercrombie A lithograph, from an stream (SSE) of its junction with the 1930 drawing by River, explored the middle reaches of tt:le Major Thomas L. Murrumbidgee. Belubula River, and discovered the Lachlan Mitchell, of the The journal of the expedition was subse­ River. During this expedition he observed and entrance to Cathedral Cave, quently edited by W. Bland and published in recorded "lime rocks" and "lime cliffs" near Wellington·, NSW. Sydney in 1831. The entry for October 28 notes the Belubula River and Mount Lewin. This was that the party travelled thirteen miles along the the first report of limestone on the Australian valley. In a footnote, Bland added that "in their mainland. progress up this valley, there were observed Among a series of news items datelined several large and deep holes, apparently the Sydney, the Sydney Gazette, on October 6, outlets of some considerable subterranean 1821 published a paragraph as follows: "A cave, cavities; rich, probably, in the organic remains of considerable dimensions, has been recently of these region's." Two cave areas occurred discovered in the neighbourhood of Bathurst; in the valley in fairly close proximity-the and some very beautiful specimens of stalactites Goodradigbee Caves (now drowned beneath have been sent to town, which were procured the waters of Burrinjuck Dam) and the caves in it. We hope shortly to be able to lay before at Wee Jasper. There is no way of choosing our Readers a more particular description." Un­ between the two cave areas. One person could fortunately, no further description appeared in opt for the Goodradigbee Caves and another the Gazette, leaving open the question-"What for the caves at Wee Jasper. In actual fact it cave?" The leading historian of the Jenolan is quite conceivable that the explorers observed Caves, the late Ward L. Havard, believed this cave entrances in both areas. cave was "the great Abercrombie cavern", with In May 1813, a party consisting of the free a slight additional chance that it could be settler Gregory Blaxland, Army Lieutenant Jenolan as stockmen were in the vicinity of William Lawson and an Australian-born youth, the Cox and Fish Rivers well before this date. William Charles Wentworth, found a way across On the other hand, it is equally possible that the previously impenetrable barrier to the west the discovery could have been the Cathedral of Sydney-the Blue Mountains. In November Cave at Wellington as this country had also the same year. Governor Macquarie despatched been opened up. Who can tell? Surveyor George William Evans to cross the In his journal, Journey Across the Blue Blue Mountains and to find a passage into the Mountains, 1824, Rene Primevere Lesson wrote interior of New South Wales. Evans reached that the discovery had been made of a cavern and named the Bathurst Plains and the lying 16 miles north of Bathurst. "The way Macquarie River, proceeding some sixty-five through it is covered with splendid thick stalac­ kilometres beyond the present city of Bathurst. tites of calcar[e]ous alabaster as white as In May-June 1815, Evans led an expedition sugar. The lime derived from it is very adhesive

VOLUME 18 NUMBER 6 193 e ee e s e ly rated highly; only it is v ry d m d of uch importa e and consequ nt nc that T a e re e ylor W e search of J.E. Carn and L.J. ward d with a ticket-of l as expensiv ." A - eav-e. Th · uct1on se e in . es Limestone Deposits of New South d · to t h e cond edition, . tro Jon ' The publish d 1 e e rea fitting says that the stor � 1947, Wales (1919) reveals on cav a y was told to Por i ter h s r englen at The Lime­ Taylor, who was a p risone R!c ard Lesson's de c iption-B r at the Je re e lllngt es twenty-six kilomet s NNE of Stockad , and other old hand on kiln about s w·t1 h ho rr e According writer had come W m the Bathurst on the Mount Ho ibl road. in contact during a 1 ong Period to Carne and Jones, the caves were of limited of years. e r a s On May e ent and occurred in marble. Th a e ha 14, 1825, the painter xt and t el � . r e l s e, and Augustus Earle, a rr e l r long been worked for o nam nta ton iv d in Sydney in ;�; r prus_ e er e Benglen Cave still e xists today o Cy In 1826, he visited the l g wh th th B ue Moun t�na s e ell " ins, as een quarried I do not know. There i a th W ington Valley ' the Hunter h b R1ver P ort l Benglen i s the cave referred Stephens and Port Macquar e possibi ity that i return·ing ' W e e portfoli l ' ith to in the Sydney Gazette in 1821, despit th a · o of andscapes and s . ket c hes of of terms between "of considerable ..Ab engin· · es._ Th�s e included the conflict .. first known e s s Carne and Jones' "of limited pictures of interiors and exter rs dim n ion " and io of the w e II'mg- extent." However, the comparative size of a ton Caves. s e e e ye of the beholder . After considerable travelling cave i oft n in th . · Earle 1- ·01n ed lle s s ered and Ch.arles Darwin aboard The Wellington Va y wa di cov H.M.S. Beagle on e Oct r 28, s r s named in August, 1817 by Lieut nant John obe 1831 a a ti t supernumerary.Lat r e e l the artist Conrad e s Oxley, the Surveyo -G n ra of New South Mart n joined the Bea er,e Wales, in company with the Deputy Surveyor­ at Montevideo to replace Earle who was leav� General, G eorge Evans, botanist A llan Darwin's e xpedition because of-- ill health� Cunningham, the Colonial Botanist, Charles Martens came _ t� Sydney in 1835, remaining Frazer, and mineralogist William Parr. During for the rest of his life. Apart from the coincidence a further expedition in 1818, Oxley noted the of serving as successive artists on the Beagle, occurrence of limestone in the hills bounding Martens became the second notable painter the e ast side of the valley, claiming it as a to depict Australian caves. valuable discovery. On his chart of the interior The earliest written, authenticated reference of New South Wales, published in 1820, Oxley to the Wellington Caves is a letter wr itten at noted this limestone as occurring a short dis­ Wellington by Hamilton Hume, on Decernber4, tance wes t of the junction of the Macquarie 1828 and carried by runner to Sydney. Hume and Bell Rivers . However , h e did not similarly was accompanying Captain Charles Sturt as ma rk the Wellington Caves l imestone on his second-in-command of an expedition down the map. The first settlement was set up in the unexplored Macquarie River. Hume wrote: va lley in March 1823 under the command of "There is near this place a very large and beauti­ Lieutenant- Percy Simpson. The 'population' ful cave". He then described what is now known consisted mainly of convicts and their s oldier as th e Cathedral Cave. guards. The s tockade was positioned about The expedition leader, Captain Sturt, in his ong three kilometres fro"ni the caves, b et"ween ttie journal of the expedition, refers to "Moul caves and the present town of Wellington. Plains, a military station intermediate between The e arliest suggested discovery of the Bathurst and Wellington Valley." Sturt con­ Wellington Caves by Europeans is published tinued that "the accidental discovery of some tical in a book, Eumalga, or the White Chief. The caves at Moulong Plains led to the more cri cav­ date of publication of the first edition is not examination of the whole formation, and quently known but the author, Robert Porter, was a ities of considerable size were subse r ularlY, long-time inhabitant of the district. The book found in various parts of it, but more pa tic Valley. tells of events allegedly occurring in the in the neighbourhood of Wellington re generally Wellington Stockade and surrounding country The caves in the Molong district a llington, between 1822 and 1835. John Saville, a convict, small but must be added, along with We arrived at the s tockade in 1823, Porter wrote, to the earliest discoveries. rst re�o rt ed and after being ill-treated, escaped and joined In eorge Ranken of Bathu 1830 G to� e Welling a group of blacks he had previously befriended. the disco�ery of fossil bones at th . of 5pec1- Later, Saville revealed sel e collect· 10 him f to a prisoner Caves and· made th first r •he name s pro bably, � Dicky Taylor, acquainting him with "the mens. The cave concerned wa l s smal se�ret of the now far-fame ell e rance wa d W ington Caves", Breccia Cave, whose nt \ the r e 0 which Taylor .communicated to the officer se to the en! anc in vertical shaft clo mentous charge of e e le this mo th s tt ment. The information was Cathedral Cave. A report of

HISTORY NATURAL 194 AUSTRALiAN discovery appeared as a letter in the Sydney or not yet discovered living in Australia. Owen Gazette of May 25, 1830 over the signature was to work for another forty years on 'L'. It was almost certainly written by the Rev. Wellington material, publishing a series of Dr. John Dunmore Lang who took a great inter­ papers through to the 1880s. est in the bone collections. For more than 140 years now, paleontologists Numerous other collections of fossil bones have been studying fossil bones from the followed. Few bones were recovered intact, Wellington caves, ranging from the original col­ most being fragments only and mixed in utter lections of the 1830s through to collections confusion in a matrix of cave earth, clay, or made during the past few years. The list of as a breccia. The most important collection discoveries consists of a bewildering array of was made by Major Thomas L. Mitchell, the extinct and existing marsupials together with explorer and Surveyor General of New South monotremes, lizards, snakes, birds, rodents and Wales, also in 1830. Subsequent examination dingoes. The few human bones found in the and study of these bone collections by people Wellington Caves to date have been uncon­ such as Professor Robert Jameson in Edinburgh nected with the fossils. and Professor Sir Richard Owen in London re­ Despite their efforts there are still many vealed many surprises. mysteries to solve. We can assume, for example, Owen wrote to Mitchell in 1838 that the that the Wellington Valley formerly supported Pencil drawing of Wellington fossils were not referable to any a considerable population of animals, but no Burrangalong known extra-Australian genus of mammals, nor satisfactory explanation has been put forward Cavern sketched were they referable to any existing species of as to why such a huge deposit of fossil bones in 1843 by Conrad Martens-from the Australian mammal. The greater number of should have accumulated within this small lime­ original drawing in th specimens belonged to species either extinct stone hill. Dixson Library. Sydn

Photo: NSW Government Prinler

�- ,.

VOLUME 18 NUMBER 6 195 ND CRAWLING THRou CLIMBING A ERY G BY ANDREW PAVEY AND NEIL MONTGOM

explorati wide the far wall was not visible The on of Australia's deep "A void so es t cave the jingling was not yet complete. In January to a single lamp, and nothing but 1973 dry to entrance was found which descends i�/ of the ladder disappearing into the gloom . · · o the fina I c ham ber via a series of deep shafts. the presence of a caver sweating away appropriate betray It is that Australia's first cav of his kind froze ing down below, while others club-the Tasmanian Caverneering Club­was paying out the lifeline and stethoscop­ founded (in 1946) in the above, . · · state now k nown ically analysing his progress from its move­ to contain both our longest and deepest cav One of the first trips to be ments. Brief delays, slight jerkings, he is tiring. held by the c1:� was to the Junee area where members Finally a whistle blast, then two." explored the Junee resurgence and several small cav - Kevin Kiernan, Southern Caver, March 1972 es nearby. The trip was not without its excitement as the Club's founder, S.W. Carey, nearly found­ ered in the swollen Junee River after a par n the gloom of the immense cavern the ty had reached the end of the cave followed the stream on from where the I two explorers river flowed from an underwater passage. below the crashing twenty-metre waterfall that had beaten them nine months previously. The The formation of the first club was followed steam continued for a mere sixty metres to in 1948 by the founding of the Sydney University a frothy, quiet, deep sump-Gollums Pool Speleological Society (SUSS). By 1956, eight and the bottom of the cave. Thus, just twenty­ clubs and societies had formed from around five months after the discovery of a streamsink Australia and they banded together to form in the thick forests high in the Junee Valley the Australian Speleological Federation (ASF) above the small Tasmanian town of Maydena, at an Inaugural Conference hosted by the Cave the cave now named Khazad-dum had grudg­ Exploration Group of South Australia (CEGSA). ingly revealed its record depth of 321 metres. This conference was followed by a highly suc­ Early exploration parties were defeated by cessful sixty-man expedition to the Nullarbor thundering, underground waterfalls, but in Plain in January, 1957. January 1970, a breakthrough into high-level no specialist equipment was avail­ passages occurred and the cave was 'pushed' Initially, caver; he had to make do with to a depth of two hundred metres in the next able for the for other pursuits. His ropes were two weeks. At this point, the nature of the cave gear intended lights were household changed of hemp or manila and his into a meandering stream passage aver torches or carbide lamps. For clothing, the c containing a number of short drops (no greater . f old clothes or perhaps a Pair_ 0 than ten metres). With large volumes chose any of for protection water crashing overalls. The helmet, essential down on the explorers, expos­ · 's he ad against falling rocks and bumping one ure and exhaustion rapidly set in as the number ' of com­ against obstacles, was a miner s helmet of ladders and ropes required grew. Epic trips co_m· pressed cardboard. Sandshoes, or less resulted: eighteen hours underground and the this I1st· monly boots completed the outfit. Of Australian depth record was broken at 256 ' ' . te st of the only items that have withstood the metres with the foaming stream vanishing into time are the overalls and boots. the dark abyss below; then a marathon twenty­ one wn�ar d hour assault and near disaster-ten metres Since caves are often followed do a e down ·I mmedI t _a w�terfall and no end in sight, water from the entrance ' there arose an splashing · descen d - inside boots, parka, whistle .... need to have some safe technique for The . n d.i 9 sodden bundle is hauled to satiety return trip, asce n by his com­ ing drops and ' on the . e d rades, and then, finally, ing pa rty prov A caver nine months later them Use of a rope and haul t Gollums Pool. ' · . he deepes climbs a wire to be unsatisfactory although one of t ladder on the --- 20-metre ity of entrance ANDREW PAVEY has b en a . . h e Univers itch . � physics tutor at the University of NSW and is a past president oft i e and � into Mammoth NSW Sp e 1 eo 1 ogical Society. rs C Ol eg lave, Jenolan, NEIL MONTGOMERY graduated from Sydney University Teache NSW. has been a member of th in single rope e Sydney Speleological Society for the l�st ten years. Both are interested STORY 196 ATURAL HI AUSTRAL IAN N SUBTERRANEA

shafts on the mainland, the spectacular fifty­ metre pitch in Drum Cave, Bungonia, was des­ cended this way. In 1950, SUSS constructed three fifteen-metre wire ladders, an improve­ ment on early wood and rope ladders. These could be rolled into small bundles and easily transported through a cave. Climbers on ladders were lifelined with a rope except on very short drops. As easy finds became less common, cavers in­ creasingly concentrated on pushing less ob­ vious passages. It was this development which caused some major technical advances since these passages were often underwater, high in a cave roof, very constricted or almost filled with sediment. Descents of deep shafts, some carrying waterfalls, were equally challenging. Early in 1952, two cavers from SUSS were exploring the Glass Cave at Jenolan when they noticed a hole some four metres up a vertical wall. Later that year, one of them, John Bonwick, read a French caving book, Subter­ ranean Climbers by Pierre Chevalier, which told of his early exploration of a cave system under the Pyrenees in which he made repeated use of a 'scaling pole'. This scaling pole was con­ structed fron:, short lengths of metal tubing which could be coupled together into a longer length when required. In 1953, Bonwick con­ structed a pole which was put to use on the hole in the Glass Cave. The cavers were elated to find a large extension to the cave which they explored over several succeeding week­ ends. They named it the Chevalier Extension, and it contains some of the finest calcite decor­ ations known at Jenolan. Late in 1952, a group from SUSS headed by Fred Stewart started underwater explor­ ations at Jenolan Caves. Today's sophisticated cave divers would shudder at the primitive equipment they started with-a gas mask, a length of hose and a pair of foot bellows. Their first effort in the underground river of the Imperial Cave, Jenolan, forced a re­ appraisal of their gear and in 1953, Stewart managed to cover more than twelve metres until the hose ran out! The passage continued.

techniques and cave surveying and are presently in Europe to attempt the descent of the largest hole in the world-Gouffre Berger in the French alps. j

VOLUME 18 NUMBER 6 ng Cave, and rapid explorati mulla on O its u tunnels and rock piles quick � ge ly prom� 0d it cave in / to the longest Australia at that 1 0 coveries flowed on and in 1966 C ; - Di�­ a E SA tnp camped four kilometres underground for seven days and detailed mapping of the c ve Was continued. By the end of that � year e tot al length of the surveyed cave had grow� t0 near ly ten kilometres. Although Mullamullang still conta ins. un­ surveyed and unexplored passag es the f cus of attention has switched to Tasm� nia. A� Ida Bay, south of Hobart, near the . Hastings Cav es two relatively short caves were known, one on each side of Marble Hill-Entrance Cave wh Mystery Creek flowed into the hill, and ;;i� Cave two kilometres away, where the same stream flowed out into the D'Entrecasteaux River. After access was improved by cutting a new track, a quick breakthroug P. Cattyn h occurred Neil Montgomery Some of SUSS's leading diving enthusiasts climbs a single formed the Sydney Speleological Society rope up a 60-metre shaft on an (SSS) in 1954. A Cave Diving Group formed expedition in SSS soon after its founding. They trained to Papua. rigorously and assembled modern equipment. Four years later in the Imperial Cave, divers passed four watertraps and found five hundred metres of passage ending in rockfall. The group dived frequently until the early 1960s when a near death caused their breakup. Little was then achieved until recent years when a new gener­ ation was attracted to the huge wonder-filled passages under the Nullarbor Plain. In 1958, a small cave was found near Augusta in Western Australia. A rotting ladder near the entrance indicated that it had been previously Joe Jennings explored, but a party from Perth, following an negotiates a nar­ row fissure in airdraught low in the chamber, tunnelled twelve the Argyle Hole metres through sandy soil to find themselves at Bungonia, NSW. in a cavern with massive formations. Further exploration revealed beautiful helictites, a silent

placid lake, and no sign of other explorers. A. Pavey us- The length of the cave, now named Easter Cave in 1966 in the large rockpile which had previo se to commemorate its date of discovery, was ly terminated Exit cave. Known passage ro etre increased many times by another party which rapidly and by 1970, over si xteen kil?m s ive con succeeded in edging on their backs fifteen of passage had been surveyed. The elus � foun metres along a tiny water-filled passage with nection to Entrance Cave has yet to be of beer only sufficient airspace for eyes and nose (a despite a prize of two dozen bottles technique aptly described as 'roof-sniffing'). offered to the successful explorer! tion, the cave After the successful trip of 1957, interest in As with most kinds of explora us passag�s the huge caves under the Nullarbor increased explorer looks first at the obvio t sys tematIc and a number of other groups had visited the and it is often only years later tha 1· 5 contern· nook and cranny area by 1962. Joe Jennings, in Canberra, made checking of every 5 0 uth at Naracoot�, a careful examination of recent aerial photo­ plated. The Victoria Cave a ve as a tourist e graphs and identified 105 large depressions Australia was first opened pre· n of GE GSA which might contain caves. The 1963-64 SUSS late last century. Robert Sexto ted cave and no expedition, using these results, found Mulla- pared the first survey of the

L HISTORY NATURA 198 AUSTRALIAN that it showed a conspicuous absence of fossil shafts on ladders, cavers had turned to descend­ bone material. However, when a party led by ing and ascending on a single rope. They Grant Gartell of CEGSA penetrated a con­ abseiled down and prusiked out, two techniques stricted passage in August 1969, they found a originally developed for mountaineering many silt-floored chamber scattered with what ap­ decades before. The saving in weight, and hence eared to be rocks. Closer examination revealed time, is enormous; ladder-and-tope is replaced that the 'rocks' were the remains of diprotodons, by rope alone. giant extinct kangaroos and marsupial lions­ The development of single rope techniques it was a huge animal graveyard! has been parallelled by a renewed interest in By the end of the 1960s, the ASF comprised caving overseas, particularly deep caving. Aus­ nineteen clubs, representing all states of tralians are looking to the close mountainous Australia. With the increasing popularity of the islands ofPapua New Guinea and New Zealand, sport, techniques and equipment had improved where much potential exists for the discovery and some important changes had occurred. In and exploration of deep caves. 1965, the miner's light was introduced to Aus­ On home ground, however, laddering st11I tralian caving. It features a cell worn on the remains the most common method used, except waist, with a cable con,-,ected to a light worn in our deepest caves. It can be expected that on the helmet. Another advance in industrial the ladder will continue to hold its place in standards also benefited the cavers-the intro­ this country, dominated as it is by shallow caves. duction of strong plastic and fibreglass helmets The rapid increase in awareness of caves an·d the techniques for exploring them has resulted in a plethora of publications on caves and caving. The growing practice of documenting discoveries will lead to increased systematic ex­ ploration which will in turn, using advanced techniques, reveal major extensions of known caves and a small number of new caves. Expeditions will follow up earlier iscoveries and produce comprehensive trip reports, club news­ letters and books reporting on specific caves and cave areas, both within Australia and overseas. It is unlikely that any extensive new cavernous limestone will be found in the densely populated southeastern sector of the continent. The re­ mote 'frontier' cave areas in Tasmania and the far North of Australia can only be explored by 'expedition-style' trips and, with increasing affluence and leisure, these areas will be visited more frequently. Nevertheless the well known areas of easy access will always be popular and with continuing refinement of techniques and safety devices, more people will be inclined to replace the compressed cardboard ones. It to try this speleosport. Cavers attempt to free- was also during the 1960s that synthetic ropes dive the water- became readily obtainable, challenging and FURTHER READING trap separating the eventually ousting the conventional manila Tolkien, J.R.R. The Hobbit and The Lord of the two sections of Nal Rings, rangullen Cave. NSIJ rope. Ladder construction had improved. A George Allen & Unwin Ltd., London, 1966. significant advance was that high-quality ladders had become commercially obtainable. The rungs were pressure-welded to the wire, making the ladder robust and durable. Khazad-dum was, however, the last of the hard laddering trips. Around 1970, an upsurge of interest in vertical caving caused a greater consciousness of technical advances overseas and in particular of the swing there towards single-rope techniques. Instead of climbing j

VOLUME 18 NUMBER 6

MINERAL DECORATIONS NATURE'S CAVE ART BY JULIA M. JAMES

ave minerals are important economic on cave surfaces is cave coral. Clusters of resources, but in Australia they are mainly nodules stand out on short stalks and vary Cexploited for beauty as tourist attractions. Cave in shape and size dependinq on conditioos mineralogy is a young field but is rapidly grow­ of growth. Photototropic cave coral grows in ing with use of modern instruments which allow entrances and areas illuminated by arti­ minute sampling, and miniature monitors using ficial light. Photosynthetic algae grow on solid-state electronics can now continuously lighted surfaces and, removing carbon diox­ record the mineralising process as it occurs. ide from carbonate solutions seeping down Carbonates are the major cave minerals. walls and formations precipitate calcite. The Among the three crystal species of calcium algae need light for photosynthesis; therefore carbonate, calcite is commonest vaterite is very cave coral accumulates towards the light unstable and unknown in caves, and aragonite, giving the impression, in a cave entrance, which should be unstable in Australian cave that a mighty out-breath blew the form­ conditions, is nevertheless widespread and ations crooked. exists in formations. Low-humidity cave coral exists in drier caves Calcite, the most common cave mineral, and unlit entrances. It is dry, rugged, and oceurs in many different crystal forms, mainly robust in structure with minute crystals that rhombohedra and scalenohedra and less fre­ suggest formation from thin films of carbonate quently, prisms. Their combination and twin­ solutions seeping down. High-humidity coral ning give many crystal shapes. Dog tooth grows in active caves. Splashes from drips cover spar crystals are scalenohedra combined with the coral with thin carbonate solutions. Where prisms. Size depends on conditions and well­ carbon dioxide is most easily lost, as on the formed large crystals may grow only under curved tips of nodules, carbonate is readily water. In most formations, crystals grow from deposited, but little precipitates from thick films thin water films as small modified shapes giving between nodules. sheet- or rod-like forms, including the familiar Cave pearls, occurring in small basins, are stalactites, stalagmites and straws, but Aus­ common in Australian caves, but usually in tralian caves -also contain large numbers of small numbers except for the remarkable river exotic formations whose growth is more of pearls in Giants Causeway Cave, Chillagoe, obscure. Queensland. These are roughly spherical and Helictites are still called mysteries because their surfaces are reflective when wet. Their their shape is difficult to explain in terms of analysis reveals a nucleus of dust or rock normal calcite growth. They twist and turn in layered with calcite or aragonite. Rotation is random directions and seemingly defy gravity not necessary to obtain the uniform deposits by growing upwards. They commence as fine of the pearl. They occur in still pools fed filaments with a narrow central canal, often by falling drops with insufficient energy to less than 0.25mm diameter. Carbonate solution move them. Possibly the crystals that grow flows down this to the open end, sometimes under the pearl increase in size to lift the forming a drop. The tip grows with continuous pearl and allow solutions to deposit underneath addition of crystal material. Solution dribbling them. down the sides may thicken the helictite which Pendulites are another strange formation in continues to grow as single crystal and it Australian caves and were first discovered in may become so thick that the original structure the Easter Cave, Western Australia. They com­ is lost. The capillary canals branch, dividing mence as stalactites or straws, but if the cave the helictite into twig-like structures. Blockage becomes partly submerged in slow moving of the capillaries with faster precipitation causes streams, their tips dip below the water. Dog Two cavers tooth spar then grows on the tips, forming admire Vivienne's changes in direction, often as sharp bends. Needle, a large One inconspicuous but widespread formation crystal balls. If mud is then washed in, the stalagmite with its head in a cloud of JULIA JAMES, a lecturer in inorganic chemistry at the University of Sydney, is Director of the Speleological _ straws, in the Peter Research council and a member of the Sydney Speleological Society. Her maior research proJect 1s on the Lambert Passages, mineralogy of the Bungonia Caves, NSW. Waitomo, New Zeala1

VOLUME 18 NUMBER 6 201 Halide minerals in Australian c aves i halite (sodium chloride or co nclude . . mmon salt) 1s foun d in many caves on the ' wh·I Ch Null_a r b_o r The growth of these forma Plain. tions IS Sl t�at of gypsum deposits. rnila r to Delicate glass Y crystal fibres may form curving bundles . rese rnbl'1 flowers, sparkling crusts on w ng alls ' or srn stalactites and stalagmites. a11 Cave phosphates contain man y minerals some rare. The phosphate com . . es fro rn t main sources, animal bones w 0 and bat guan It reacts with calcium carbonat o. e in the Walls clay fills and sulphide-charged . ground waters to produce a range of minerals, many of Julia James Whi eh

Photo: By Cour1esy of NSW Depl. ol TorJtism forest of stalactites ball becomes coated forming mud pendulites. with their tips cov­ Magnesium and calcium magnesium carbon­ ered in dogtooth spar and cave ates are rare in caves even when dolomite coral. ·is the parent rock. They include magnesite, hydromagnesite, nesquenhonite, huntite and small amounts of dolomite. The attractively coloured hydrated copper carbonates, blue azurite and green malachite, are found in caving areas, with copper mines Iron carbonate, as siderite, is found where heat and pressure have changed limestone into marble, though it is rare in caves. Sulphate minerals are widespread in Aus­ The chemical form­ tralia, but in caves are restricted to the drier ation of a variety of calcite speleothems. passages where growth of calcite formations is inhibited. The major sulphate is gypsum, which is usually colourless, but sometimes has pale colour from impurities. Forms include crystal groups, rosettes, crusts, curving clusters, flowers and snowy white fibres. Porous limestone, as found on the Nullarbor Plain, favours gypsum formations. The ground water solutions containing calcium· sulphate evaporate in the porous cave walls, forming crusts. Further deposition behind these crusts A pocket of cave pearls forces them into the cave as curved crystals. 1 Eagles Nest Cave, More rapid growth on one side causes them 1rrangobilly, NSW. to curl into gypsum flowers.

ompose. ate in nature and dec are. intermedi . uano from fres h bat g The making of nitrate These 1 ac r1 on · requires particular bacteria. . an d · from bat urine bacteria remove ammonia . acts . . . ·tra te which re convert 1t to nitrite then ni ' . ate. calciu nitr with wall rocks to produce � ian _ y stral Bat guano is mined in m_an se s, b�t to u caves, not to extract the chemical directly as fertiliser. ISTORY ATURAL H AUSTRALIAN N Halite and gypsum flowers and fibres in Mullamullang Cave, Nullabor Plain, Western Australia. A Pavey Haematite and goethite both iron oxide min- Warwick, G.T. "Cave Formations and Deposits"; Cave coral of the hig stain their surroundings red-brown, and pp.83-119. in British Caving (ed. C.H.D. Culling­ humidity type grows erals, calcite flowstones. eastern Australian caves, manganese ford), Routledge and Kegan Paul, London, 1962. in many Wells, A.W. "Cave Calcite"; Stud. Speleol., 2, 129- This specimen and in Old Inn Cave dioxide covers cobbles, formations walls 148, 1971. at Yarrangobilly, NS soot-like layers. Both manganese and A Pavey with I iron oxides and hydroxides can be deposited by bacteria, but are usually precipitated chem­ ically by highly oxygenated and alkaline cave waters. The only common Australian cave sulphide is pyrite. The detection of hydrogen sulphide gas in Odyssey Cave, Bungonia, New South Wales led to a detailed investigation by the writer, of the evolution of carbonate, oxide, and sulphide iron minerals in that cave. The minerals are forming in a slow-moving lake in an atmosphere with several percent carbon dioxide. These studies aim at understanding depositional conditions for specific minerals in the cave for maximum production of metal ores. In providing a model for the origin of iron minerals of the Precambrian period, when the Earth's atmosphere may have carried several percent carbon dioxide. Theoretical and practical studies of the evol­ ution of cave minerals will hopefully lead to new methods of extracting low-grade ores and the discovery of new ore bodies, and catal oguing of cave minerals in their special environments goes on; - but, though few mysteries now remain, the most widely studied and most fascinating aspect of cave minerals is their growth into objects of beauty and fanciful imagination that always delight th ose who visit the Earth's caverns.

FURTHER READING Broughton, P.L. "Secondary Mineralisation in the Cavern Environment"; Stud. Speleol. 2, 191-207, 1972. Moore, G.W. and G. Nicholas Speleology-The Study of Caves; Health and Company, Boston, 1964.

VOLU ME 18 NUMBER 6 THE F ORMATION. AND DEVELOP BY J.N. JENNINGS

plateau of the floods, occasionally breaking off chu n a small shallow hollow in a nks f rock. innocent­ Thus the stream is mechanically de southern tablelands of NSW, an epe/ an I enlarging this underground canyon Reing d looking hole just big enough to enter de·scends · m nants of former stream beds can be see no less than fifty-four metres before narrowing n at v anous. levels above the present channel and too much for further penetration. This is Putrid . , belo to ear I.1er s tages in the cave s erosion. ng Pit cave at Bungonia Lookdown. A vertically­ Solution is developed cave, it ·is made up of a series of interconnected, enlarged joints in limestone, which run in different direction. This is a simple case of a cave forming by the effect of rainwater seeping down under gravity in an uppermost hydrological zone in the rocks where voids are partly filled with air and partly with water. Rainwater, seeping through the soil into the originally tight joints in the bedrock, contains carbon dioxide in solution. Some of this is dissolved from the atmosphere, but most is provided by the respiration of plant roots and microbes in the soil. This makes the water slightly acid and through complex chemical action it can dissolve considerable amounts of limestone as it descends. Small springs beneath the Bungonia Lookdown cliffs, fed from the Putrid Pot and similar nearby potholes, commonly contain 350 milligrams per litre of dissolved calcium carbonate. By this solution the joints are enlarged, linked together and so the Putrid Pit has formed. Though the Putrid Pit is not the place for the uninitiated explorer, some of the Wombeyan Caves are. There, in the central tableland of NSW, Wombeyan Creek goes underground into the marble of the large impressive Victoria Arch. At times of high discharge, the stream carries on from the back of the arch through Creek Cave, emerging two hundred metres along and eleven metres lower at the head of Wombeyan Creek gorge. Creek Cave is really just a river canyon with a lid. The rapids of the cave stream pass over many swirl-holes-bedrock bowls in which gravel and sand are whirled around with an abrasive action. In other sections, covered over thinly with sediments, the turbulent abrasive floods erode the whole channel. High up in the cave, jammed tree-trunks are moved and battered against the projecting walls during

J.N. JENNINGS is Professorial Fellow in 'The Ballroom' in Geomorphology �t the Australian National University Punchbowl Cave, and a former president of the Australian Speleologfcal ,. Wee Jasper, NSW. Federation. :i: �!iiiili� ! ORY TURAL HIST 204 AUSTRALIAN NA ENT OF AUSTRALIAN CAVES

also going on substantially as chemical analysis metre each year. Asymmetrical current of the water shows. Most rock is removed by markings or scallops on the wall are produced voluminous flood waters, despite faster flow by tiny eddies of water close to the wall. Thus when less is dissolved per litre than in low flow. Creek Cave is a kind of limestone cave carved Indeed in flood, marble is dissolved in Creek mainly by mechanical and chemical attack of a cave at the rate of three-quarters of a cubic stream not filling the cave fully-a free surface

205 VOLUME 18 NUMBER 6 largely filled with much younger sediments which have yielded important bone collections. Cave diving, dangerous even to highly trained people, is the only means of examining caves of this type while they are still forming as they are near Mt. Gambier in South Australia. Here they _ reach the surface 1n deep blue pools set in large circular cavities in the limestone such as Little Blue Lake and Goulden's Hole. In hillier country, water filling caves will be under pressure from above and so it will move faster with more force, and can travel upwards as well as downwards. Virtual pipelines are driven through the rocks; these pressure conduits are usually circular or elliptical in shape because solution occurs all round them, not just on the floor as in a free surface stream. These are the most difficult caves to explore when in the active water-filled condition. They must be examined after they have drained, but are likely to have been modified by free surface streams then. Barber Cave at Cooleman Plain in the Kosciusko National Park, NSW gives a good is pressure conduit Obviously, vigorous streams cannot flow illustration of this. It has two entrances in a � Punchbowl Cave, through limestone until holes appear and, steep, little valley tributary to Cave Creek in its Vee Jasper, formed when fast-flowing therefore, caves are initiated under other gorge below Cooleman Plain and two exits in the water filled the hydrodynamic conditions. Below the level at wall of that gorge. The tributary stream now ave. Sediment now which all voids are filled with water, tiny threads sinks underground into the higher entrance and covers the floor and the headlamp of water percolate through joint and bedding flows through a lower passage to the lower exit on the left gives planes in the rock in interlacing patterns, only two metres above Cave Creek. The upper an idea of the dissolving tiny embryonic 'passages' in intri­ passage links the lower entrance with the higher size of the passage. cate nets as can be seen on the roof of the Grand exit thirteen metres above Cave Creek. This Arch at Jenolan Caves, NSW. Eventually, the passage begins as a canyon cut by a free surface easiest routes through these minuscule laby­ stream but then becomes flat-roofed at the level rinths are enlarged preferentially and a water­ of its exit. This flat-roofed part is a remnant of a filled cave is created. pressure conduit. When it formed, Cave Creek In low-lying or flat country, movement in these flowed at the level of the upper exit, which was water-filled tubes will remain slow so that then a spring, controlling the upper limit of currents and heights of springs will scarcely pressure flow solution. influence the course of solution. Joints and Afterwards the gorge was cut down to its bedding planes can then strongly control the present level. To begin with the upper passage cave pattern, as is seen in Cathedral Cave at drained partially and a free surface stream cut Wellington in the central-western slopes of down into the floor of the former pressure NSW. Nearly all its roof and walls are smooth conduit. Eventually the stream found a fresh solution surfaces in the form of innumerable route through the limestone which took over rounded domes, apses and symmetrical cusps, from the old passageway. This present active resembling cavities in a gigantic sponge. This is stream passage is undergoing the same history the effect of slow eddying in completely water­ as its predecessor but has not yet gone so far. filled spaces and the highly irregular shape of Thus Barber Cave shows chiefly the effects of the cave is partly concealed by the level floor of two phases of solution by fast flow in water-filled red clay. passage separated by a phase of free surface Cathedral Cave now lies in a low limestone flow. ridge, but must have been carved out when the One further important process in limesto�e Bell River flowed thirty-five metres higher than cave formation is illustrated by Warbla Cave in today in an old limestone valley floor. It is an old the Nullarbor Plain, Australia's largest limeston� cave related to past conditions of very different region. When a cave ceases to be full of water, it relief. There are other caves at Wellington loses support and thereafter breakdown can be similar in origin to Cathedral Cave, but they are expected as rocks fall under force of gravity from

HISTORY 206 AUSTRALIAN NATURAL the roof and walls. Streams may undercut walls entirely, leaving a tunnel. Church Cave is of this to promote this but, more importantly, .seepage type. The study of Earth's lava tunnels helps us water en larges joints and bedding planes so that to understand the 'rilles' on the surface of the cks drop down or fall inwards, blo sometimes moon. ggered by earth tremors. The whole tri floor of A very different kind of lava cave forms in the Warbla Cave is buried in rock fall; the highest central vents of volcanoes. The lava out of which es are beneath domes in the roof out pil of whiGh a volcano is built rises up a pipe. When the e dropped. The entrance to the th ey hav cave is a volcano ceases to be active, a vertical cavity may hole in the roof made by collapse vas t . be left in the pipe either because of the blowing s and arches of this The dome and other deep out of lava or through a final contraction of the caves in the Nullarbor are not smooth from liquid lava still in the pipe. There is a cave of this solution, but are largely rough due to fracture. type in the summit of Mt. Eccles in western Cave breakdown can only take place into space Victoria. created by other processes such as solution and Large, complex limestone caves have abrasion. The deep Nullarbor caves originated attracted most attention. Their investigation by solution, chiefly at times of lowered sea-level poses logistic problems but the information during cold periods of the Pleistocene, when gained is often valuable for our understanding of decreased evaporation increased the available surface topography and how it comes into water. being. Smallness has, however, too often Each of these simple limestone caves has discouraged investigation of a cave's origin. been discussed to draw attention to a particular Small caves are widespread throughout process and hydrodynamic situation-vertical Australia as a result of atmospheric weathering seepage of water, free surface stream flow, slow of many kinds of rock. Some have been used by water movement in water-filled caves, fast Aborigines for various purposes and their movement in what are virtually pipelines, rock sheltering climates may allow distinctive collapse into cavities created in these ways. biological communities to occupy their special Generally, however, limestone caves have been habitats. The same is true of caves cut by waves subject to combinations of processes in varying along the coast, especially when these are circumstances so that they have endless variety abandoned by the sea. Though these small an d complexity. The same is true of dolomite, caves cannot be discussed further here, their ano ther common carbonate rock. Large importance for the natural historian and the dolomite caves are known in Australia as, for prehistorian must not be overlooked. instance, around Camooweal in northwestern Queensland. FURTHER READING Australian Speleological Federation Speleo Hand­ Volcanic activity is the next most common book; Sydney, 1968 (1st Ed. out of print; cause of substantial caves, but in Australia only 2nd Ed. in press). some of the Victorian and Queensland lavas are Dunkley J. and T.M.L. Wigley (eds.) Caves of t�e young enough to preserve them. Nullarbor; Speleological Research Council, Church Cave at Byaduk North in western Sydney, 1967. . . . Jennings J.N. Karst; Australian National University 'The Dune' Victoria is a typical lava tunnel formed in a basalt Press, Canberra, 1971. in Mullamullang flow from the Mt. Napier volcano. This tunnel, OIiier C.D. and M.C. Brown "Lava Caves of Victoria"; Cave, Western Aus with a small branch, lies along the line of the flow Bulletin Volcanologique, 28, 215-229, 1965. tralia. is one of the Caves; many rare features an d is entered where its roof has fallen in over Sydney Speleological Society Bungonia S.S.S.Occ.Pub. 4. 1973. in this unique cave two long stretches. Despite some roof fall in the remainder, original forms of lava can be seen inside the cave, including ropes of lava which dribbled out of a smaller pipe into the main tunnel. Lava tunnels can be formed in several ways. Lava channels open to the sky crust over or are encroached upon by lava piling along their sides or are bridged by moving blocks jamming across them. Other tunnels are du� to chilling of a skin of lavaaround a quickly moving thick flow or toe of lava. In some flows, more fluid lava separates out between layers of more viscous lava and concentrates into a few streams, which erode cylindrical ways for themselves. These sometimes drain in part or

VOLUME 18 NUMBER 6

(a) no longer inhabit the ar�a. or from which a specimen was retrieved, a this � . (b) still live in the area. could prove to be the only means of determin ng � The extinct animals include birds and re its age relative to those specimens occurring ptiles as mammals. Amo gst the latt above or beneath. as well � er there numbers of different sp Excavation is carried out using small brushes, are large ecies of oos belonging to the genus trowels and dustpans. Sediment is removed kangar Sthenurus. Tedford of the Americ for a given depth, usually five or ten centimetres, Richard an Museum History divides the over a relatively large area and all the large of Natural sthenurine two subgenera bones, skulls, jaws, etc. are reliefed out and kangaroos into on the basis structure. The left in place. They are then sketched and of their skull short-faced forms photographed in position and placed in con­ he suggests are forest browsers, whereas those tainers bearing the appropriate grid reference showing a tendency towards an elongation numbers and removed for further cleaning of the anterior palate he equates with a grazing and preparation. In some cases, large speci­ niche. Specimens representative of both these mens are too fragile to be lifted from the genera have been found in the sediment dig without special treatment. They are first suggesting that the country surrounding th� surrounded with damp tissues and then with cave during this period consisted of both open sand and the specimen is finally encased in plains and forest or savannah woodland. A either a plaster of paris or polyurethane foam similar situation occurred in the area in the jacket. In this fashion, badly fragmented early days of settlement with sclerophyll forest capping the dune ranges and open gr asslands and savannahs covering the interdune plains. An almost perfect skull was found of one of the largest of the browsing kangaroos Procoptodon. It is interesting to note the small peg-like incisors so typical of browsing animals such as the koala. This kangaroo stood about two or three metres high and from the structure of the scapula, Tedford has concluded that it could raise its long arms above its head, presumably to pull down branches on which to feed. Another animal found within the cave is Thylacoleo, the cave lion (see Australian Natural History, Vol. 17, No. 1), an animal described The strong, heavily material can be removed to the laboratory by Sir Richard Owen as "the fellest and most clawed front feet for careful restoration. The excavated sediment destructive of Predatory beasts". At Naracoorte, of Thylacoleo carnifex, is placed in bags with the grid reference label we recently recovered a partial skeleton of the extinct and carried out of the cave and spread on this animal which included two well-preserved marsupial sheets of plastic to dry in the sun. It is then forelimbs and a partial hind foot. All the digits lion. carefully picked up with a dust pan and broom of the forepaw bear hooded claws with that and placed in sieve boxes. As the sandy sedi­ of the first digits being exceedingly large. ments contain only a small quantity of clay, The first digit is not opposable to the remainder the dry sand is very friable and dry screening and lies approximately parallel to them. The has proved to be the most economical way structure of the hind foot bears many similarities of collecting the fine bone material. Occasion­ to that of the climbing possums. Perhaps ally these dried sediments are washed through Thylacoleo was an arboreal predator on the screens but this has only been necessary possums and koalas. when the clay content of the sediment is Zygomaturus trilobus is a large quadrupedal higher than normal. The dried residues are marsupial herbivore about the size of an ox. spread on table tops and diagnostic portions, It is a relative of the large Diprotodons of such as mammalian skulls and jaws, bird limb Lake Callabonna (see Australian Natural bones, reptile jaws and vertebrae and frog History, Vol. 17, No. 11) and its remains a�e pelves are sorted from the residues. relatively common within the fossil deposit. The fauna from Victoria Cave can be divided Although the bones of marsupial predators into three major categories: d have been found within the cave it is considere (i) extinct animals, and l unlikely that any were large enough to kil (ii) extant animals which e an animal of this size. In fact, the only evidenc

210 L..,u15T ORY AUSTRALIAN NATURA e to the bones of Zygomatu of damag rus are ing marks of rodent incisor the gnaw . s; it is believed that these large therefore animals e caves. tell into th . more lightly-built A larger but relative also depos t is P lorchestes. found in the � � The large of this animal and portio slender jaw ns of have recently been recov ·is skeleton ered and indicates �reliminary study that it may have vegetation of swamps and fed on the wet- lands. Among the extant animals, Meredith Smith has identified bettongs, potoroos, ringtail gliding possums, short- finishing in a drop of approximately eleven The skull of possums, and long­ Procop-r metres to the cave floor. Such an · entrance a large nosed bandicoots, Tasmanian tigers, Tasman­ todon rapha. would not only act as a pitfall trap but would extinct browsing ian devils, and native cats, as well as the small kangaroo. also provide an ideal roosting site for predatory marsupials, Antechinus and Sminthopsis. _ birds. The remaining two bone chambers, the From the presence of these small mammals, she concludes that at the time of accumulation Upper and Lower Ossuaries, are notable for of the bones, Victoria Cave was surrounded t�e absence of small vertebrates. This suggests by dry sclerophyll forest. She has also pointed either that the bones in these chambers accum­ out the considerable variation between species ulated in a different manner from those in the Fossil chamber or, alternatively, that water in the presence of adult animals in the deposit, _ ct1on has carried the smaller material deeper concluding that for these small creatures the � into the cave, leaving behind only the larger cave did not act as a simple pitfall trap but bones. !hat the bones were brought in by predators. Carbon-14 dating In a recent paper, van Tets and Smith have of the carbon from the Upper Ossuary indicates an age of 36 500 described some bird fossils from the cave. + 4.3 - 2.aoo50 They include remains of the masked owl, Tyto years ago (ANU ref. 1269), whereas novaeho/landiae, a predator, and of the black­ a technique developed by Dr. Bada of the faced sheathbill, Chionis minor, a scavenger University of California based on the race­ misation of amino acids in the bone indicates -both of which are known to roost in caves an age of 20,000 years -20% for the material and rock crevices. Thus some of the small inUpper the Ossuary and40,000 years -20% mammals could have come from owl pellets for the bone in the Fossil Chamber. or from carcasses brought into the cave. As With current work in the old water levels !here is an upper limit to the size of the incave the and more carbon-14 dates on prey these birds could carry, this could account the bone, we are slowly moving toward a for the absence of adults of some of the reconstruction of the diverse Pleistocene fauna mammal species. They also point out that, of this part of southeastern South Australia paradoxically, all the eighteen species of birds and toward an understanding of the climate found in the cave thrive under wet, coastal in which these creatures lived. conditions. In attempting to make any palaeoecological FURTHER READING reconstructions from deposits such as those Smith, Meredith J. "Small Fossil Vertebrates from in Victoria Cave, we must be very careful to Victoria Cave, Naracoorte, South Australia. I. Potoroinae, Petauridae and Burramyidae determine the manner in which the fossils (Marsupia!ia)"; Trans. Roy. Soc. S. Aust. 95:4, were ac cumulated, particularly as the 185-198, 1971. assemblage may include separate owl and Smith, Meredith J. "Small Fossil Vertebrates from carnivo Victoria Cave, Naracoorte, South Australia. II. . re accumulations, and may not neces­ �anly be a random sample of the fauna living Perame!idae, Thylacinidae an9 Dasyuridae (Marsupialia)", Soc. S. 96:3, in the Trans. Roy. Aust. area at that time. 125-137, 1972. Students of the School of Earth Sciences van Tets, G.F. & M.J. Smith "Small Fossil Vertebrates at. Flinders University have spent many hours from Victoria Cave, South Australia. Ill. Birds with hand augers searching for the original (Aves)"; Trans. Roy. Soc. S. Aust. 98:4, 225-228, 1974. entrance to the Fossil Chamber and have now found it hidden beneath the sandy surface This work is supported by an ARGC grant and a grant from o f the Naracoorte Cave Range. It consists the South Australian Government. o f a long trench with steeply sloping sides 211 VOL UME 18 NUMBER 6 SPELEOCHRONOLOGY: THE STORY BY CLIFF OLLIER

Parwan Cave near Bacchus Marsh, " o," says the cave guide, placing hi� ha?,? while Vic­ S about two million between a stalactite and a stalagmite, if toria, is probably years old. I left my hand here for a million years it The potassium-argon method cannot be used would become part of the solid rock!" Is it for flows younger than about twenty thousand possible? Is a million years the right order years, so more devious methods are required. of magnitude? Elsewhere we may be told that A number of lava caves are associated with caves are millions of years old (or thousands, Mount Eccles, Victoria, a volcano that blocked or thousands of millions, or ageless) or that old drainage channels, diverted streams, and fossils or artefacts in a cave are of some formed Condah Swamp. The oldest organic incredible age. I remember expressing doubt material in the swamp sediments should give about a date reported by a cave guide, and a mlnimal date for the eruption, and the oldest he slyly remarked "Well, really, how would date so far recorded, a radio-carbon date report­ They-the they know!" ones who try to estab­ ed by E.D. Gill, is about six thousand years, of caves and cave contents-are though these caves sometimes look incredibl lish the ages overliey engaged in the study of speleochronology. I fresh. The Condah Swamp deposits shall try to explain ·"how they know"-and the Byaduck flow from Mount Napier, so the what of it. Byaduk flow, and the Byaduk lava caves, must Firstly and most obviously, a cave cannot be older than six thousand years. Of course be older than the rock in which it is found. the age of some lava caves is known by direct If a cave occurs in Pleistocene limestone then observation as in Hawaii and elsewhere. it cannot have been formed in pre-Pleistocene The birth of limestone caves is not so obvious. times, nor can any of the contents of the When does a crack become a cave? Our general cave be of pre-Pleistocene age; a cave in anthropocentric approach suggests that a cave Miocene limestone must be of Miocene or must be big enough for men to go through, younger age, and likewise its contents. Geolog­ and must have an entrance. It is not uncommon ists have worked out a table of geological for cave entrances to appear in limestone ar eas history which has been cross-checked many by collapse of cave roofs. Such openings are times and related to absolute ages. It is usually usually elliptical. quite easy to date a limestone by its fossil In limestone, cave formation may co ntinue content, but even rocks which do not contain for a long period-thousands or millions fossils may be dated by their relationship to of years. Different periods of cave formation underlying or overlying rocks which are fossil­ may be recognised, for example, when the iferous. Most limestones are Palaeozoic or first part of cave formation takes place beneath younger and usually contain abundant fossils. the water table and later activity occurs when Limestone caves are usually considerably most of the water has been drained away. younger than the enclosing rock. Limeston.e In Jenolan Caves there is evidence of an early is formed in the ocean, and must consolidate water-filled (phreatic) phase before the later into rock and be lifted above sea level before river-cave (vadose) phases. As with the creation cave formation can commence. of many landforms, the formation of ca ves Lava caves, which are produced while the is less likely to be continuous than periodic. lava is actually flowing, are of the same age Events such as changes of climate, changes as the lava. It is relatively easy to date lavas of sea level, movement along faults, can all by the potassium-argon method, which can lead to periodicity in cave formation. At Jenolan be used on rocks ranging in age from about Caves there is an obvious set of river ca ves two billion to less than twenty thousand years associated with the present-day river, and the ago. Thus we find that Panmure Cave in Victoria series of passages at a higher level were clearly is in a flow dated at about half a million years, formed in the same way. at an earlier time. CLIFF OLLIER is a Research Fellow in the epa _ _ 1? '.tment ?f Biogeography and Geomorphology, Research School of Pac1f1c Studies, Australian National Un1vers1ty. He 1s especially interested in the lime of Ireland and Papua and in Australian lava caves. · s tone caves 212 AUSTRALIAN NATURAL HISTORY IT TELL.

When cave fill is examined, the basic laws of in the atmosphere and in any carbon com­ tigraphy-the study of layere str a d sediments­ pound derived from the atmosphere. This as they did' in determinin apply g the age applies (with many reservations) to living things, rocks themselves. If of the there are several and to stalactites and stalagmites. With very of debris in a cave, layers the layer at the careful techniques it is possible to date stal­ is the oldest, the bottom uppermost layer is actites,. or even parts of them. Using such ngest. Of course the you care must be taken methods, it is possible to estimate the rate of such to avoid traps as intrusive burials, or growth of stalactities and stalagmites, but of the infilling animal burrows, but careful perhaps better results are gained from direct work can decipher the history of cave fill. observation. The most detailed work carried out on Folklore seems to prefer stalactites to grow. Australian cave sediments is probably that extremely slowly, but measured rates of growth done by Bud Frank on caves of New South are in fact quite rapid. In some caves, stalactites Wales near Wellington, Stuart Town and several centimetres long can be s�en growing Orange. He could distinguish an entrance on wire netting, rails or other artificial found­ material, pond deposits, soi I particles, slope ations, and the guides' explanation that they wash deposits, and flowstone (stratified calcite grow faster because the metal is 'magnetic' precipitated oh cave floors). By careful is untrue. Nevertheless the enormous form­ reasoning and the piecing together of evidence ations of many show caves must have taken from ma:ny different parts of many caves, Frank many thousands of years to grow. has been able to assemble a history of climatic Rates of solution can also be of interest, change in the area he studied, from the cave fill. and many cave scientists are putting a lot of effort into determining An initial' wet period between forty thousand the nature of lime­ stone solution and process rates. and thirty thousand years ago is evidenced The Nullarbor Caves occur in an arid area mainly by pond deposits in Wellington Caves, where cave formation must be exceedingly but supporting evidence for a relatively wet slow, but since the same processes have been surface climate at thistime comes from evidence able to operate uninterrupted for fifteen million of fluvial erosion and deposition at Borenore years, some authorities believe .that the caves Caves. A high proportion of soil particles in could have been entirely produced in the pres­ the lowermost deposits at Wellington suggest ent climate. Others invoke wetter periods, being a prior dryphase. perhaps more impressed by the size of the A second dry phase is indicated by a combi­ caves than the enormity of the time available. nation of flowstone and fluvial evidencei from In contrast, the caves of County Clare, the Borenore Caves, and a second wet phase Ireland, are being formed at such a rate that is recorded by slope-wash and pond deposits present processes appear capable of forming in Douglas Cave (Stuart Town) and Wellington them entirely in the last twenty thousand years. Caves. Following the second wet period the This turns out · to be in agreement with surface climate became drier until it finally geomorphic evidence: most caves follow dry reached its present state. valleys which are not filled by glacial drift; Studies · of cave strata, such as Frank'$, the valleys are therefore post-glacial and so are verymuch assisted by carbon dating, whi_ch are the caves. gives an absolute age rather than a relative Stalactites and stalagmites (often grouped one. Radioactive carbon-14 is continuously together as speleothems) preserve a history red produced in the upper atmosphere by cosmic of climatic variation which can be deciphe The ratio of ray bombardment of the stable isotope _of by a study of oxygen isotopes. oxygen-18 and nitrogen (nitrogen-14). Carbon-14 decays with two isotopes of oxygen, , can be determined in the laboratory a half-life of 5,570 years-that is, from any oxygen-16 quite small samples. The ratio depends r given carbon-14 atoms, half wi II on Queen Esthe number of of the water from w�ich cavern. River attained on the temperature decay in that time. A balance has been determined Cave. Jenolan NSW. the crystals grew, and this can be between production and decay of carbon-14 213 VOLUME 18 NUMBER 6 . One feature is an interesting warm period years ago. about a thousand Hendy writ es that this warm time is well-known from historical � � to be 2o records and is thought responsible o - _ '0o for �W�et�te�r�D�ri�er'..._+..L_1�0--=�"4--....__-'� --- � \-, O 1 the great changes in civilisation in Northern Europe. It is possible that the Maoris, like the Vikings of the North Atlantic, used this 10 10 warm period to migrate to, and become estab­ lished in New Zealand. Studies of the chronology and palaeotemper­ 20 ature of stalactites and stalagmites from North America has produced data on a much greater time scale, going back three hundred thousand years. Thompson, Schwarcz and Ford used 30 a thorium-uranium method for dating, and oxygen isotopes for palaeotemperature deter­ mination. They discovered periods when form­

40 40 ations did not grow at all, which should correlate with glacial periods (there would be a shortage of seepage water and a lack of biotic activity B C to produce carbon dioxide, both necessary 50 A D so for growth of formations). Fluctuating but higher temperatures in interglacial periods are revealed by oxygen-18 enrichment. They find C OIiier that their data fit in well with ideas of palaeo­ =>aleoclimate over the with an accuracy of perhaps 0.1 ° C. Again there climatology derived from other sources. In last 50,000 years: A-relative wetness are many reservations to the application of particular, there is a good correlation with and dryness; 8- the method, but with great care sensible results summer insolation curves for the Northern paleotemperatures; are obtained. Hemisphere, calculated from minor variations C-estimated July main temperature In New Zealand, Chris Hendy has used a in the Earth's motion. They also point out in Holland; D-gen- combination of carbon dating and oxygen that the insolation theory predicts that under eralised temper­ isotope analysis to determine the salient certain conditions an insolation maximum in ature curve for surface waters features of climatic change over the past fifty the Northern Hemisphere is accompanied by of the thousand years. The temperature curve obtain­ an insolation minimum in the Southern Hemi­ Caribbean. ed from New Zealand stalactites is in good sphere, so that glacial advances and retreats agreement with curves obtained from other should be out of phase in the two hemispheres. parts of the world by quite different mett· Ages of stalactites and stalagmites and isotopic A. Pavey data should help to resolve such theories of climatic change. It is interesting that while Hendy provides a curve of temperature variation, Frank's work on cave sediments indicates relative wetness or dryness. There appears to be a rough correla­ tion between their results, with associated cold wet (not necessarily rainier) conditions pre­ vailing between ten and twenty tt,ousand years ago, and a warmer dryer period about twenty­ five thousand years ago. When the two methods are used together in the same area we shall really start to measure the climates of the past. Our knowledge of past conditions will Kubla be further advanced if we can also use fossils, Khan is the pollen and artefacts to fill out the total largest known ecological set-up. stalagmite in Aus­ tralia and occurs The time scale for biological evolution may, in the cave of the in some cases, be comparable with the scale same name at Mole of data may Creek in Tasmania. cave development, so biological be used in speleochronology. In Malaya, caves

TORY AUSTRALIAN NATURAL HIS estone hills have been . 1 ted lim separated in ,so may reveal cultural changes with time. The �·ciently long periods for them to evolve f r u stone tools of Kenniff Cave, Queensland, � � : e spe cies and sub-species. In Europe d1stI�ct v studied by John Mulvaney, document the . troglobites appear to be descended all 1ivin9 passage of Aboriginal technology from hand­ e es that originated before the last orm sp ci held to hafted forms. Overseas, many great f The troglobitic animals of North West ce ge palaeoanthropological finds have been made I A we te rn Australia, live in caves in a cape, s in caves, such as the discovery in South African for m not more than five thousand coas ta 1 plat caves of Australopithecus ('ape-man') remains It is inconceivable that the animals Years oId · . which may be two million years old. e evolved their present morphology coul d hav In Europe, remains of cave art have been and it has been uc a short period suggested ins h found at hundreds of sites, and a chronology e fa una developed in late Tertiary or that th · has been built up. Cave art is common in . e times in the Cape R ange caves, Pleist 0 cen Australia, though much of it is not in true d the caves of the platform in and e olo nise caves, but in rock shelters. True cave art is, some very ancient fills have been recen t time. · however, known from caves such as Mountain ociated with caves o f e th M end. 1ps · toun d ass · · Creek Waterhole, a tunnel two hundred metres dating back to T nass,c· t,mes, .n En g land ' . long in the Northern Territory. At Koonatda i years ago. 'M o dern ' Men d 180_230 million . 1p Cave on the Nullarbor, Alexander Gallus dis-, cene fossils such as cave caves Contain Pleisto covered what is probably the oldest cave art and elephants. Caves bears, hyenas, . have yet known in Australia; associated flint mining in th e same area evidently been formed a t has been dated to between thirteen thousand times. widely separated . .. and twenty thousand years old. In Cloggs Cave, Buchan, there Is a strat1f1ed Speleochronology, the dating of caves and n d undisturbed occupation deposit containing their contents, employs data and techniques � e and stone tools and a rich faunal assem­ from many sciences-geology, biology, b�;ge which has been examined by Jeanette physics, chemistry and others. This inter­ Hope and Jo Flood. The lowest level excavated disciplinary approach is beginning to tell a story, as dated at about twenty-three thousand years not merely of the age of caves, but of the :nd yi elded extinct fauna including gi:nt evolution of landforms, climatic changes, kangaroo, Tasmanian wolf a�d Tasmanian ecological development, and the emergence of devil. Immediately above this layer were man, his tools and his art. Aboriginal stone tools dated to about eighteen years. The cave appears to have FURTHER READING thousand Hendy, C. "Isotopic Studies of Speleothems"; Bull. been vacated about eight thousand years ago, N.Z. Speleo. Soc. 4, 306-319, 1969. and throughout the period of occupation the Thompson, P., H.P. Schwarcz and D.D. Ford neighbouring environment appears to have "Continental Pleistocene Climatic Variations The 'Chevalier been very similar to that of today. from Speleothem Age and tsotopk Data"; Science, 184, 893-895, 1974. Terrace', strata Elsewhere, changes in environment may be of rimstone pools Frank, B. "Evidence for Late Quaternary Climatic recorded by fossils (as at Mount Hamilton, in the Jenolan Change from Cave Sediments in Central Eastern Caves, NSW. These Vic toria) or by pollen (as in Kairimu Cave, New South Wates", Australian Geogr. Studies, 13 pools are also New Zealand), and archaeological remains in press. known as gours. CAVES AND ABORIGINAL MAN BY SANDRA BOWDLER

stone tools from the bottom of over two metres he last decade has seen many exciting dev­ of deposit at Kenniff Cave has been radiocarbon elopment in the field of Australian archae­ _ dated to about nineteen thousand yea Tology. Scientific investigation of archaeological rs ago. During the Ice Age, much of the world's sites has revealed the immense antiquity of water was frozen into glaciers at the poles, and world­ Aboriginal man in Australia and the stability wide sea levels were considerably lower than and sophistication of his culture from earliest they are today-up to one hundred metres lower times. It has also elucidated many facets of in fact. The Australasian island group thus had his ecological adaptations to a changing envir­ a considerably different shape from that with onment. Of the sites investigated, at least seven­ ty-five percent are in the form of caves or rock­ which we are familiar: Australia, New Guinea parts shelters. The oldest site known at the present and Tasmania would all have been of time is not, however, a cave but a series of a single land mass. This does not mean that small camp-sites around the shores of Lake man could have walked into Australia from Mungo in western New South Wales which are Southeast Asia, dry shod all the way; there of the order of forty thousand years old. There would always have been a deep-water barrier are, though, cave sites in Australia with evidence between the two regions. Man's initial entry of human occupation dated by the radiocarbon into Australasia must have been effected by technique to older than twenty thousand years, some form of maritime journey, whether inten­ and these sites have given us many fascinating tional or accidental we do not know. insights into the culture of the first inhabitants Of about the same age as Kenniff is Koonalda of the continent. Cave in the Nullarbor Plain, a fascinating site Why are cave sites, not only in Australia but unique in Australian prehi.story. This gaping all over the world, so valuable to the archaeol­ limestone sink-hole leads to a deep complex ogist? In caves, there is often a continual of passages and chambers. Men penetrated to process of deposition, which may be caused more than fifty metres below the surface of by natural sedimentation, especially if water the plain to extract flint from the walls of this flows through, or by the accumulation of man's cave, and archaeologists have recovered the rubbish. In an open site, any accumulation of waste products of this ancient mining operation. layers is more subject to dispersal by weather, Not only technological debris was found; here, and they may be spread more thinly on the in total darkness, grooves and thin scratches ground since there is no limitation imposed have been made on the soft limestone walls. as there is by the walls of a cave. A cave is These man-made incisions, at least twenty a fixture in the natural landscape, while an open thousand years old, are thought to be the oldest site may be more arbitrarily located. Hence, example of Aboriginal art in Australia. people returning to a cave to make their camp One of the oldest Australian cave sites is Mal­ will always return to much the same spot. In angangerr, a sandstone rockshelter near Oen­ a cave site, we would expect to find layering pelli in eastern Arn ham Land, NT. Near the bot­ of greater depth and regularity than might be tom of a deposit 1.8 metres deep were found the case with an open site. This layering is stone axes with edges formed by grinding, and called stratigraphy and is used by the archae­ with a groove around the middle of each to fac­ ologist in recording and interpreting his site. ilitate the attachment of a handle. Charcoalas­ Kenniff Cave, in the Queensland Great Divid­ sociated with these implements was dated to ing Range, was the first site to show conclusive­ twenty four thousand years ago. This date oc­ ly that Australia was colonised by man during casioned much surprise, as previously it had the late Pleistocene, or last Ice Age. This geo­ been thought that the grinding of stone to create logical period endured up till about ten thous­ a sharp edge was a sophisticated technique only and years ago, and charcoal associated with practised by people who were agriculturalists. SANDRA BOWDLER is a research scholar in the · . . · Department 0 f p rehiStory, Research School of Pac1f1c Studies, Australian National University. She is currently . . pre paring a PhD thesis er Island, Tasmania. on the prehistory of Hunt

216 TORY AUSTRALIAN NATURAL HIS . Unfortunately, the three sites so far men­ continent, and many similarities of content may Two Aborigines ex­ plore karst form­ tioned contained little information about the be observed They are the Devil's Lair, WA; subsist . ations at Derby, ence economies of man in Pleistocene the Seton Site on Kangaroo Island, SA; Cloggs Western Aus tralia, or the environment at that time. Cave near Buchan, Victoria; and the Cave Bay Australia. �??nalda was a place for very specialised act­ Cave on Hunter Island, Tasmania. All are still ivitie s, but Malangangerr and Kenniff Cave were being studied, and any conclusions drawn at Presu . �ably generalised campsites. this stage may have to be revised in the future . Wit�in the last five years, four cave sites have The Devil's Lair has almost three metres of bee n investigated which have deposits of Pleis- deposit, dated to between twenty four thousand tocen e age con tarnrng . . evidence. of man's -and twelve thousand years ago. At Cloggs resence, � and good preservation of bone. All Cave, human artefacts have been dated to bet­ our caves are on the southern fringe of the ween seventeen thousand and eight thousand VOLUME 18 NUMBER 6 217 time, Hunter lsland_ would h At this ave been on the land bridge between Aust a hill . ralia and Tasmania. these four sites have What do in comm o and n besides their age excellent conditions , Firstly, taunal preservation? implements ma�� bone have been found at each of . Th ese are tools made of p sturdy, pointed macropod bo L -�·---· E and highly polished. Secondly, a high perc I ··-.... e�t: s age of the stone artefacts at all these T sites 0 was made of quartz, and a particul C ar mod E , - ·. � c1a,ooo manufacture c�lled the 'bipolar N of te chniqu:. E . -- j i is observable. Th rdly, none of· these cave appear to have been inten metres 2 would sively occup� ied. Each has been the haunt of non-human kestrels, ,'.cA,.'-:midden ..,,, hearth "sterile" predators-owls, native cats, the Tasmanian wolf and Tasmanian devil. We know this not only from finding the identifiable re­ mains of these animals, but also from the nature of the other bones found. Masses of tiny Sections of an exca­ At the Seton site, there are two layers rodent years ago. bones suggest the regurgitated pellets of owls vated trench in of human occupation separated by eighty centi­ Cave Bay Cave, and other birds of prey; kangaroo, wallaby and metres of deposit. The lower layer has been Hunter Island, possum bones broken up into tiny fragments Tasmania. dated to sixteen thousand years ago and the suggest the work of marsupial carnivo upper layer to eleven thousand years ago. This res. It seems unlikely that man and carnivor site is of particular interest as the occupation e would have co-habited simultaneously; of Kangaroo Island has been a subject of much probably they alternated their occupancy of these speculation for many years. When Flinders visit­ sites. Let us look at one in detail. ed the island in 1802, he found it to be unin­ habited; yet many stone artefacts have been The sides of an excavated trench, represent­ found lying on the surface of many parts of ative of the Cave Bay Cave sections is illustrated the island. Well before the advent of radiocarbon on this page. The sequence presented here dating, Norman Tindale suggested that is speculative, insofar as more radio-carbon Kangaroo Island must have been colonised dur­ dates are pending. The earliest date so ing the Pleistocene. His argument was that the far obtained is eighteen thousand years, as colonists walked into the island across a Pleisto­ mentioned, but a still earlier one is possible. cene land bridge, and after it became an island Stratigraphically, the earliest evidence for man's with the post-glacially rising seas, the colonists presence in the site is the lowest of the three became extinct. The Seton site has verified the black hearths in the diagram. These hearths Pleistocene occupation of Kangaroo Island, are distinguishable from the layers below, above though the excavator, R.J. Lampert, argues that and between them as they contain an abund­ it is more likely that the colonist_s retreated ance of charcoal, numbers of stone tools, and to the mainland as the land link eroded about large amounts of wallaby bone. This bone is eight to ten thousand years ago. These three in the form of complete jaws, and long bones sites are all limestone caves, and limestone ' broken only on the ends. Many are heavily burnt. being alkaline, creates an ideal environment The presence of only one or two species sug· for the preservation of bone. gests a cultural preference-the result of human The problem of the origins of the Tasmanians hunters selecting in favour of a single prey. has puzzled ethnologists, archaeologists and The bone in the surrounding layers represent� physical anthropologists for the last two hun­ more diverse species: rodent, marsupial 'mous� il dred years. The excavation of the Rocky Cape (Antechinus sp.), pygmy possum, ringta caves, where the oldest deposits are eight possum, bandicoot (Perameles sp.), pade· ea thousand years old, suggested strongly that melon, wallaby, wombat and native ; 0 the Tasmanians came from Australia during the (Dasyurus et. viverrinus). The multitude Pleistocene. all More recent work on the Cave Bay rodent and Antechinus bones, often in sm Cave on Hunter the Island, six kilometres off the concentrated pockets suggest they were northwest tip of Tasmania, d natur e puts the matter be­ prey of owls·' the extr�mely fragmente yond any doubt. This site, es ts a sea cave in a slate of the bones of the larger animals sugg cliff, has been dated to eighteen thousand f these years. the work of the Tasmanian devil. Many o

218 HISTORY RAL AUSTRALIAN NATU species are not now to be found on Hunter and years old, there are at least ten which were Island, and further reinforce our impression of occupied for the first time within the last five this piece of land being part of the Australian­ thousand years. Similarly, in the Sydney­ Tasmanian greater land mass. South Coast region, Burrill Lake is the only Half-way up the sequence is a layer of dense known cave site of Pleistocene antiquity. The shell midden, indicating a period when the sea only other archaeological site of comparable level was close to its present position, and age in the area is Bass Point-an open campsite marine shellfish were readily obtainable. Today, dated to seventeen thousand years. Dozens of this cave directly overlooks the foreshore. My other caves and shelters excavated in the area estimate of ten to eight thousand years is merely had all been occupied for the first time within that-an estimate-but for the following the last eight thousand years. These areas are reasons. This layer rests directly on top of layers near present-day coastlines, and coasts seem deemed to be of Pleistocene age on the basis to be areas capable of supporting dense popula­ of the animal species represented, and is com­ tions of hunter-gatherers. It must also be borne parable to the lowest levels of Rocky Cape in mind that Pleistocene coastal sites are now south, dated to eight thousand years. Rhys under the sea. While prehistoric population esti­ Jones, who excavated the Rocky Cape caves, mates, be they ever so broad, are notoriously argued that the oldest levels there represented fraught with peril, we might push this argument people with a well-developed coastal economy a little further and suggest that during the pushed back by the rising seas and practising Pleistocene, the Australian land mass was less this economy at Rocky Cape after the sea reach­ densely occupied than in more recent times. ed its present level. The midden layer at Cave Whatever the reason, it does seem that during Bay seems directly analogous. Above the the Pleistocene, cave sites were less intensively midden layer there seems to be another hiatus used by man than subsequently. in human occupation. Rodent bones are again At this point it would be pertinent to enquire abundant, but instead of larger marsupials we into the use made of cave sites by Aborigines find the bones of innumerable seabirds. Here in historic times. In Australia, the archaeologist we might seek an analogy with Kangaroo Island: is greatly aided by sources of information not the midden layer might represent the period available to workers on the European stone just before Hunter Island came into being, and age. In this country over the last two hundred the people may have retreated when they saw years, detailed observations have been made the last link with what is now Tasmania bout of hunter-gatherers leading traditional lives. to be severed. The most recent deposits in the There are written documents containing such cave co ntain further evidence of human occu­ observations by the earliest settlers, there is pation, hearths and lenses of shell midden, and the work of trained anthropologists, and recent­ the bottom of this complex could represent ly, archaeologists have been betaking them­ the maritime discovery of Hunter Island. We selves into the bush to observe at first hand know from historical sources that most of the the way hunter-gatherers live. Curiously, very islands of the Hunter Group were visited by little can be gleaned from these sources per­ sea by the Tasmanians, who came to exploit taining to man's use of Australian caves. It would the muttonbirds. seem that caves figure very rarely in the day­ Let us re-focus our attention on the Pleisto­ to-day life of the average hunter-gatherer. We cene deposits in the Cave Bay Cave. The traces are left, then, with a paradox: the type of site of man here are remarkably sparse when we most sought after by the archaeologist was consider that the total period represented is probably of least importance to the people who, of the order of ten thousand years, and no sporadically, occupied it. water barrier intervened between the site and FURTHER READING the people's major hunting and gathering Lampert, R.J. Burrill Lake and Currarong, Terra domain. The stratigraphy and fauna at Devil's Australis I; Department Of Prehi story, Research Lair, Cloggs Cave and the Seton site present School of Pacific Studies, Australian National a similar picture. A comparison with Rocky Cape University, Canberra, 1971. South emphasises this, as here it can be seen Mulvaney, D.J. The Prehistory of Australia (2nd ed.); that a truly massive two and a half metres of Pelican, 1975. Mulvaney, D.J. and J. Golson, (eds.) Aboriginal Man occupational debris has built up in only four and Environment in Australia; Australian National thousand years, and the deposits contain no University Press, Canberra, 1971. sign of the action or living presence of non­ Wright, R.V.S. (ed.) Archaeology of the Gallus Site, human predator s. To return to the Oenpelli Koonalda Cave; Australian Institute of Aboriginal region, for every site here in excess of ten thous- Studies, Canberra, 1971.

VOLUME 18 NUMBER 6 219 ECOSYSTEMSBY J.A. HARRIS UNDERGROUND

aves provide homes for a variety of organ­ ature of the regi n in which the cave is located. _ � - _ isms and provide interesting challenges The relative hum1d1ty 1s generally high and com­ Ctor ecologists who study them-challenges paratively constant, while both silence and dark­ concerning not only life in caves but also ness are characteristic. the workings of ecosystems in general. There are many ways in which caves become The cave environment may be conveniently occupied by living things. Leaves, twigs and divided into a twilight zone near the entrance, soil may fall or be washed into caves along a middle zone of complete darkness and variable with the small animals associated with this temperature, and a zone of complete darkness material. Flowing streams also can bring life where temperature is constant. The last zone into caves. Fungi and bacteria, along with small is usually emphasised as being_ 'the cave insects and spiders, enter caves on wind environment'. The temperature of this zone currents. Large animals such as bats and rats s usually approximates the mean annual temper- can colonise caves unaided. When considering

220 Y AUSTRALIAN NATURAL HISTOR anisms live in caves, it is important whic h org fifty-two percent troglophiles and six percent ber that photosynthesis to remem cannot take troglobites. Australian caves have few animal absolute darkness. place in Consequently, species that exhibit obvious morphological ent plants are virtually abs from caves except adaptations to 'the cave environment' and the near entrances. tendency has been to classify most species cave animals usually are classified according as troglophiles although they have been collect­ to their place in the cave and the extent of ed only from caves. ptation to the cave environme their ada nt. There Bats are undoubtedly the outstanding ar e surface-dwelling species that wander, fall example of trogloxenes. The most common or are washed in purely as accidental visitors and numerous bats occurring in caves are are therefore called 'accidentals'. Carpet and bent-winged bats ( Miniopterus austral is and pythons are occasionally accidentals as they M. schreibersii) particularly in eastern Australia. sometimes wait at cave entrances to feed on Both of these species are small insectivorous bats as they fly in and out. Other animals, bats and are usually found together in the same Noctuid and Geometrid moths for example, caves. In the limestone caves system at Mt. occur outside caves but will regularly shelter Etna, near Rockhampton, Queensland, a colony in cave entrances. Leaf-tailed geckos feeding of these species numbering 300,000 to 400,000 on these moths also shelter in entrances. The individuals is dependent on a single cave for parasites that live on bats and other cave the birth and rearing of their young. Hence animals are another category. Batflies (Diptera: the name 'nursery cave' or 'nursery' is used Streblidae and Nycteribiidae), that look more to describe these caves that are occupied by like spiders than flies are excellent examples maternity colonies of bats at certain times each of specialised parasites living on their bat year. These bats have been studied by P.O. hosts. The three major categories of cave Dwyer of the University of Queensland, and inimals are: he has found that all the bent-winged bats of (1) species that spend part of their lives within eastern Australia depend on relatively small caves and part outside (the trog loxenes). These numbers of nurseries, each of which serves usually have a daily cycle of activity, as in a large area usually bounded by major physio­ cave-dwelling bats, birds or crickets, where graphic features such as watersheds or divides the animals shelter within the cave but emerge -a fact that is of great importance for their to seek food. conservation. Through observations and a pro­ (2) species that live only within caves (the gramme of tagging thousands of individual bats troglobites). Included in this group are the with metal arm bands, Dwyer found that in early species famous for their spectacular morpholo­ summer, females fly to the special nursery caves gical adaptations to 'the cave environment' for the birth of their young. Following birth, exhibited as a reduction or loss of pigment baby bats cling to the ceilings of their nurseries and eyes. in dense clusters until weaned. (3) species that complete their total life cycle A different kind of cave-dwelling bat is the within the cave, but which lack evident mor­ false vampire or ghost bat (Macroderma gigas). phological specialisation and may occur in The largest of the carnivorous and insect­ surfa ce habitats (the troglophiles). eating bats (forearms 100-120mm, weight In a fauna! study of forty-seven caves of approx. 150g) it feeds on lizards, small the Nullarbor Plain, southern Australia, Aola mammals, birds and other bats at night in tropical latitudes. Their roosting colonies are M. Richards of the University of New South Female Wales recorded ninety-five species of no greater than a few hundred individuals. bent- winged arthropods comprising twenty-five percent A small number of Australian birds use caves bats. schreibersii accidentals either as roosting or nesting sites but only M,inipterus , seventeen percent trogloxenes, flying in their nursery cave. Note His research interests the naked young JOHN A. HARRIS is a lecturer in ecology at the Canberra College of Advanc�d Education. _ _ and plants. clinging to its mothe are cave ecology and the evolution of Australian communities of cave animals

VOLU ME 18 NUMBER 6 221 was discovered at Ida Bay in Tasmania. Since that time two other blind species of trechine carabids have been found in Tasmania. The Australian troglobitic beetles so far known are all of the family Carabidae. Their distribution patterns are closely related to the southern Pleistocene periglacial zones. Large caves Leaf-tailed geckos, one species is a true trogloxene-the grey appear to have provided refuge for certain Phyllurus cornutus, swiftlet. This species occurs in northeastern animals from the climatic extremes of this feed on moths that are sheltering near Queensland and they build their nests of plant glacial period. Generally, troglobitic beetles cave entrances. material in clusters deep within caves. They appear to have been derived from groups that can fly in the dark, apparently with the aid were, in a sense, preadapted to life underground of a metallic clicking call used for echo-location. and in continual darkness. These mainly lived In addition, they have large eyes and probably in the moist, deep litter layers of forests. are able to make maximum use of whatever Troglobites have become so specialised to their dim light is available. environment over a period of time that they A common invertebrate trogloxene is the are able to migrate only by means of under­ cave cricket (Orthoptera: Rhaphidophoridae). ground cracks that may link, intermittently, their Several species of cave crickets rest on the normally isolated homes. They are also ceilings and walls of caves, in or close to the numerous in temperate latitudes. twilight zone, during the day and usually venture Troglophiles are more mobile and less res­ outside the cave to feed at night. Their food tricted in their habits than troglobites. They consists of small arthropods, possibly ants and may persist for many generations in caves millipedes, living in the forest floor among if food supplies permit, but they are able to leaves and twigs. subsist on surface sources and may move The troglobites of Australian caves include from one habitat to another. A wide var iety fish, crustaceans, spiders and insects. They of invertebrates are troglophiles, perhaps the exhibit specialised adaptations as a response best known of all being the glow-worm. The to the particular selection pressures occuring biology of the glow-worm is described in an in 'the cave environment'. In complete darkness, article by A.M. Richards, in Australian Natural there is strong selection pressure for the dev­ History, September 1963. The most prevalent elopment of structures highly sensitive to touch troglophiles are the guano mite (Uroobovella and smell. Hence the cockroach, Trogloblattella coprophila) and moths of the family Tineidae nullarborensis, found in caves of the Nullarbor (which contains the clothes moth) that are Plain, is completely lacking in eyes but has associated with bat guano deposits. There are very long antennae and legs. The cause of the numerous species of centipedes, beetles, flies, lack of pigment in many troglobites is a complex mites and spiders living as troglophiles in Aus­ question. This lack seems to have resulted from tralian caves. neutral selection pressure associated with pig­ How does food become available in sufficient mentation genetic linkage. Little research has quantity to enable animals to live entirely in been carried out on the adaptations of life in caves? Cave food is provided as rotting vege­ cave lakes and streams in Australia, although tation and other organic matter washed in dur­ white blind Gobioid fish and shrimps have been ing flooding, together with the droppings and discovered in subterranean water in northwest dead bodies of animals which feed outside by Australia. night and return to the cave by day. Bats, cave Australotettix Troglobitic beetles have repeatedly aroused crickets and particularly birds in the Nullarbor carraiensis, one interest since the first completely blind species caves are because of several species important in this respect were described from Europe over a century of their gregarious roosting habits and the drop­ of cave cricket ago. It was only in 1969 that the first completely that occur pings of guano they produce. Roosting ba ts blind Australian species, (Carbidae: Trechinae) produce droppings of guano which in turn can be colonised by fungi. If the number of bats roosting on the ceiling in one site is sufficient, a small guano heap is produced, providing suf­ ficient food to sustain a number of organi sms such as beetles and moths that feed on bat dung and fungi. Spiders, in turn, may be attrac t-

TORY AUSTRALIAN NATURAL HIS ·ed to the dung heap to feed on beetles. A short food chain has been initiated within a simple community of organisms. Should the bats choose a different roosting site, the major source of food available to this community is cut off, and only those species that have evolved adaptations that enable them to grow and reproduce on a scarce food supply will survive. Many species are able to live temporar­ ily without food (e.g. spiders), or to search out an alternative source of food (e.g. winged beetles). Rotting vegetation transported into the cave may provide an alternative food source, but its small quantity and irregular occurrence again allow the development of only relatively simple communities-simple in the sense is the build-up of guano deposits which Goedetrechus mend­ that there are few species and numbers of umae, one of the firs enormously increases the food supply to cave eyeless troglobitic individuals present. This seems to be the situ­ organisms. Nevertheless, large, durable beetles to be ation in many Australian caves. deposits of guano are built up only in those discovered in There is a class of cave where this situation Australian caves which are important to the bats' physical caves. is modified-the bat cave, or more specifically, or social requirements and where there is the bat-guano cave. ·rhe regular roosting of an absence of frequent flooding or flowing large numbers of bats in_ caves markedly water. These specific caves, or specific modifies 'the cave environment'. Bat-guano chambers of caves, because of their importance caves occur throughout eastern Australia where to the bat's way of life, are occupied regularly the bent-winged bats are present. These caves by many thousands of individuals at about may be heated up by the activities of bats, the same time each year. Examples are nursery but a combination of factors is necessary before caves and those where mating occurs. The temperature change can occur. heaps of guano found in these particular caves If the body temperature of a roosting bat support resident communities of organisms. falls to the same air temperature as the cave, These are different from transient communities the cave temperature obviously will not be· that are associated with less durable heaps com­ influenced. Even when the body temperature monly found scattered throughout large caves of bats is maintained above that of the cave, where bats roost in many different sites. the cave (or chamber) is suitably domed and Carrai Bat Cave (a l\mestone cave, near protected from drafts of surface air to enable · Kempsey NSW) is a bat-guano cave in. which the generated body heat to be conserved so that I spent several years investigating a community bats will influence the cave temperature. The of organisms living in a durable guano heap, extent to which bats may heat up caves is best one and a half metres high, that stands in a shown in the nursery caves of the bent-winged small inner chamber (Chamber C). This bat­ bats. Their nurseries usually possess domed guano ecosystem is unique, in common with each and every living system, but it exemplifies This ceilings and the capacity to house nursery centipede, colonies of many thousands of individuals. the kinds of processes occurring in other bat­ belonging Temperatures in these caves may fluctuate more guano caves as well as providing clues to the to the genus ° ° workings of ecosystems in general. Scolopendra, than 10 Cover a year and are often 10 C above commonly occurs the mean annual temperature of the surface Chamber C is reached by crawling through in caves and in the location site. a short tunnel. The chamber is about seven forest litter outsidE The other obvious modification of caves by bats regularly roosting in large numbers

223 summer cluster metres long and four metres wide. It is an of bent-winged bats enclosed chamber with a partially domed ceiling Miniopterus four metres maximum height. Between one schreibersii in of Carrai Bat Cave, thousand anq three thousand bent-winged bats near Kempsey, NSW. roost there, clinging upside-down from the ceiling, each day from late January to June and again from October to early December with intermittent roosting occuring during most of December and January. These regular roosting cycles are known to have been repeat­ ed with little variation for over ten years. The air temperature measured near the chamber wall is 14 ° C :!: 2 ° c annually. The resident community of organisms inhab­ iting the heap comprises bacteria, fungi, proto­ zoans, nematodes, mites, beetles, flies, moths and spiders. Counts of the number of bacteria and fungi indicate that these micro-organisms occur in largest numbers in the surface layers. This trend is also shown for protozoans and nematodes. Mites, in particular the guano mites, which occur in very large numbers, and beetles cave. The organisms seem unable to feed on crawl throughout the layers of guano to a the partially decomposed guano which accum­ depth of about twenty-five centimetres. The ulates to form the red-brown central core com­ australis) and spiders guano fly (Cypselosoma posed mostly of chitinous remains of moths are found only close to the top of the heap and other arthropods. in the fresh guano, while moths tend to rest With the arrival of bats in large numbers the lower surfaces. on during October, fresh dung pellets and When bats are absent from Chamber C during urine are deposited on the heap and there July to September there is no source of food is a spectacular change in the activity of the com­ to the guano community. The organisms on munity. The micro-organisms (bacteria, fungi, the heap either become inactive, neither grow­ and protozoa) colonise the fresh guano and ing nor reproducing (e.g. the guano mite) increase their numbers rapidly. The prev or their numbers drop as in the case of the iously inactive mites feed, grow and reproduce quickly. guano flies, which have very few larvae and The adult flies lay eggs in the fresh guano. only a few adults. Resting histerid beetle larvae Immature guano mites grow rapidly occur thirty centimetres into the heap. Only and moult, The food web of while previously inactive females the staphylinid beetles disappear from the heap begin laying the bat-guano eggs. The mature larvae of the histerid beetle community and presumably migrate to another part of the J.A Hams pupate, after 'wintering' some thirty centimetres down inside the heap, and later a few newly­ emerged adults make their way to the surface. The population of guano mites builds up quickly (maximum number recorded was 33,700,000 per square metre) with the hatching of larvae and the moulting of immature stages to re­ producing adults. The density of flies, because of their initial low numbers, takes longer to increase. The fly larvae feed directly on the freshly-deposited guano. Following the arrival of bats in October, the activity of the guano community is intense for a period of about one and a half months. Through continuous measurements of the temperature of the guano heap using an auto­ matic temperature recorder, I discovered that significant physical changes were occurring to the heap at the same time. Temperature of the surface layers of guano to a depth of

AUSTRALIAN NATURAL HISTORY ed adaptations over a perio·d of time to their special bat-guano cave environment. Their environment is characterised by a reliable seasonal input of food (guano and urine) caused through the interaction of bats with the cave structure, and a highly variable physical en­ vironment brought about by the interaction of all organisms comprising the guano community. This particular bat guano ecosystem is, nevertheless, part of a wide network of living systems. In Chamber C of Carrai Bat Cave, we see a variation of familiar ecological processes that govern the interrelationships of each and every species in all natural communities. These cave interrelationships are fine examples of the diverse products of the evolutionary process that has produced all life on our planet including our own species. Caves themselves are a further demonstration of the ever-changing character of the Earth's 1wo centimetres increased from 14-15° C to physical environment. They form, develop for ° a time, then collapse in an unending natural almost 24 C within a month of bats arriving process. It is this process that provides the lo roost. variety of unpredictable physical events that When the majority of roosting bats vacate promote the continuing function of biological Chamber C in early December, to give birth evolution. Therefore, caves are vital places lheir young at a nursery cave six kilometres 10 for life, as well as places for learning about away, there appears to be sufficient fresh guano the working of living systems-the ecological available to tide the guano community over rationale for their protection and that of their lill large numbers of bats return to roost and living inhabitants. mate in lat e January. From this time until June, fluctuations in numbers of individuals FURTHER READING of each species and the community relation­ Dwyer, P. D. "The Population Pattern of Miniopterus schreibersii (Chiroptera) in North-Eastern New ships app ear relatively stabilised. This series South Wales"; Aust. J. Zoo/. 14, 1073-1137, 1965. ol changes appears to be a regular annual Harris, J.A. "Structure and Dynamics of Cave cycle. Population of the Guano Mite, Uroobovel/a Considering the usual description of life in Coprophila (Womersley)"; Aust. J. Zoo/. 21, caves one might wonder why the species in 239-275, 1971. Richards, A.M. "An Ecological Study of the Chamber C are not more mobile and show Cavernicolous Fauna of the Nullarbor Plain, greater rete ntion of the ability to exploit other Southern Australia"; J. Zoo/. (London) 164, The bat-guano heap food sources quickly. The majority of organisms 1-60. 1971. in Carrai Bat Cave. remain on the guano heap and their behaviour has be en synchronised with the cyclical input of food. There seems to be little movement lo and from the heap itself. The central guano core increases the amount of usable space avai 1- able for the guano community. Like soil, it forms a depth of material that provides protection lor soft-bodies animals such as histerid beetle larva e as well as guaranteeing that the species remain 'in position' to receive the next input of lood. Vital stages in the development of guano mites (e.g. moulting) also occur in the central core. The presence of the core seems necessary in order to mai ntain the exceedingly high numbers of organisms in the guano heap. lnsummary, the ba t-guano community is made up of a small number of species that have evolv-

VOL UME 18 NUMBER 6 '-·· f.:, - ,¥-: ...... _, ..,,,. t THE

rom the days of Australopithecus, man has been known to use caves-though his reasonsF for doing so have evolved along with man himself. As man's curiosity led him to ex­ plore the depths of his primitive shelter, he discovered things both beautiful and useful. There must always have been the argument about which of these values should take prece­ dence over the other, but as Earth's store of natural resources and of natural delights has been steadily depleted by her rapidly expanding human population, the argument has gained momentum. Caves and karst landscapes are one example of natural features whose beauty must be ad­ versely affected if they are to be made useful to man. They are, of course, particularly suscep­ tible to mining but even tourism unwittingly takes its toll. There are many caves in Australia that have been developed as tourist attractions; they can be found in every state. Each location varies in the type of landscape it presents and in the stories it has to tell. Growth in cave tourism has been remarkable as is well-illustrated by the number of visitors to Jenolan and its show caves-from less than twenty thousand in 1930 to more than one hun­ dred and eighty thousand in 1974. Indeed, the popular Lucas Cave is sometimes visited by as many as two thousand people in one day. The reasons for such increases are tied to factors such as increased leisure time, and greater income and mobility. In some areas there is little debate about appropriate methods of conservation. Mulla­ mullang Cave on the Nullarbor Plain is remote, undoubtedly lmique and ideally suited to the preservationist concept of conservation. Lucas Cave at Jenolan is synonymous with high dens­ ity tourism, incompatible with other interests, and the only question is how to fulfil this function over the long term. However, in most cases, and especially in karst areas close to -� � population centres, it is necessary to ensure 0 not only that representative landscapes are properly preserved, but that competing interests - Il are satisfied. To some extent this depends on

Com­ Ji JOHN DUNKLEY is a teacher with the monwealth Teaching Service in Canberra, and has a particular interest in cave conservation.

AUSTRALIAN NATURAL HISTORY HEAVY HAND OF MODERN MAN BY JOHN DUNKLEY AND LUDWIG REIDER

1he controlling authority. Thus Jenolan, Yarran­ The range of conservation issues can be re­ gobilly and Bungonia (NSW) provide primarily presented in the form of a continum which /or tourism, tourism/scientific, and recreational recognises partly overlapping interest groups demands respectively, reflecting the spirit of and leads to a consideration of conservation lhree different legislative arrangements. Within problems removad from the extreme positions each such area, however, master plans can zone of total preservation versus total exploitation. bolh surface and underground environments /or different purposes. TOTAL TOTAL EXPLOITATION There is a wide range of conservation issues PRESERVATION concerning caves and karst areas in Australia COMMUNITY quite apart from tourist problems. Some caves INTERESTS require conservation measures because they lypily the biological and geological features dislinctive to a location. Mullamullang Cave, AESTHETIC ECONOMIC FACTORS FACTORS located on the dry Nullarbor Plain in Western Australia typifies an underground wilderness Aided by a grant from the National Estate concept having such features as collapse doline Commission of Enquiry, an · inventory of enlrances, underground sand dunes, huge Australia's karst and cave resources is now chambers, rare gypsum and halite formations being coordinated by the Australian Spele­ as well as being the type locality for two troglob­ ological Federation. However, legislatiye action ilic invertebrates. On the other hand, Exit Cave will be slower and only in a few places is a in the remote forest country of Ida Bay, master development plan yet extant or Tasmania illustrates the multiple use concept proposed. as Australia's largest cave with sixteen kilo­ Whatever use criteria are devised and applied, metres of surveyed passage, huge chambers, it will be essential to establish and maintain, immense rock falls and several underground through proper research and management rivers. Here there are superb decorations and policies, ceiling rates of cave usage. These ceil­ rare fauna occurs in portions of the cave. Among ing rates of usage should be conceived in terms lhe largest caves in Australia, Mullamullang and not only of physical and/or environmental carry­ Exit Caves receive less than two hundred ing capacity of a cave area, but of user satisfac- visilors per year at present. In contrast, the Texas Caves, located in graz­ The impact of tourism on the karst landscape ing country near the small Queensland border may be direct and indirect. Direct forms can lawn of Texas, are to be inundated by construe­ be divided into surface impacts, resulting from lion of a nearby dam. This area represents the the provision of parking space, walking·tracks, only karst landscape within reasonable reach picnic areas, tunnel access, amenities areas, of groups from Brisbane. accommodation sites and management Another important conservation issue con­ structures; and subsurface impacts caused by cernsthe use of caves for the dumping of wastes. the provision of facilities necessary for com­ For example, Earls Cave near Mt. Gambier in fortable cave inspection, such as electric light­ South Australia, a small cave with a shallow ing, wiring, pavements and protective fencing. water table has been used as a rubbish dump The indirect forms of impact on the karst as have others in the area. Bacteria and other landscape have only recently been given due pollutants have found their way through the consideration, which has usually been more water table into the processed water of Mt. conceptual than practical. For example, the high Gambier's factories and pos­ yearly throughput of tourists in some of the The vegetable canning entrance sibly into the town water supply, which requires major show caves at Jenolan has resulted in the to heavy chlorination. a noticeable decline in the quality of the caves' Grand Arch. Jenolan. LUDWIG REIDER, a Research Officer with the NSW Department of Tourism, is Vice-President of NSW with Blue Pool the Sydney University Speleological Society. His main interests include cave surveying, conservation, the in the foreground. geomorphology and cave tourism and recreation.

VOL UME 18 NUMBER 6 227 conservation proble environment and has adversely affected their of the landscape's ms, of an integral part. In g value as a tourist resource even though tourist which he forms eneral what a cave tourism traffic is well controlled. This situation has led to the perception of exper� now moving from the use of steam cleaning in an effort to restore ience should be is one with meaningless the show qualities of the caves concerned. a myopic and generally quality Cleaning disclosed considerable amounts of lint to one with diverse qualities providing a more and other textile fibres derived from v1sitors over enriching and intellectual appreciation of one we the years. Furthermore, not only does the large aspect of the world in which live. throughput of visitors produce significant It seems necessary to recognise the major pollution, but the removal of these pollutants elements of the cave tourisms experience so may often entail the destruction of a cave that research leading to better management and ecosystem in which subsequent loss of show quality can be properly organised. While ap­ quality may be accelerated. The pearing obvious, few seem to recognise them interdependence of surface and subsurface for their organising value. These elements impacts resulting from high tourist use may be include: the anticipation of the trip, the tr avel illustrated by the construction of car parks on to the place, the on-site experiences, the tr avel limestone areas. These concentrate runoff and home, and the recollections of the experience. reduce infiltration which in turn alters drip, Any attempt at improving the quality of a cave stream flow and sediment parameters within the outing must be considered in light of these. caves, and hence the growth of formations. The In the long term, the conservation of construction of tunnels to aid access to remote Australia's cave resources inevitably depends caverns has the effect of damaging some on attitudes of the public and of government. decorations and changing the atmospheric Caves will not be preserved for altruistic motives, circulation in the caves despite the provision of but because the social ethic demands that th ey semi-sealed doors. be conserved as valuable resources. There are It seems necessary to gather more inform­ strong arguments which strengthen the long­ ation about the impact of man-made structures term value of planned conservation and erode in caves to add to the paucity of knowledge the economic case for short-term exploitation. that currently exists. Some of the more impor­ For example, leisure activities can be viewed tant questions are: as mental regeneration, as an escape from the What kind of material should be used? complexities and frustrations of modern What are the best types of pavement society, so that adequate provision for tourism structure? and recreation can be viewed as an investment What kind of lighting techniques are best in the nation's productive capacity. Uncertainty so as to minimise the growth of algae? as to future wants and needs, prices, costs How can unsightly cables be eliminated or and technology make possible the development hidden? of a social ethic which will limit economic ex­ Cave tourist areas may provide for a number pansion. Then, there is the argument related of diverse and seemingly conflicting interests to statistical calculation based on the present such as entertainment, interpretation, environ­ value of all future returns from alternative mental studies, picnicking, accommodation and resource uses. cave inspections. A noticeable feature of cave It is quite likely that short-term fi nancial tourism is that it has been traditionally endowed returns from industrial uses are far exceeded with magic, fantasy and fairy tale qualities. This by long-term indirect returns from alternative is shown by the many mythical names given recreational uses of caves. to caves and their decorative features- e.g. Temple of Baal, the Ruined City, Lot's Wife. FURTHER READING However, many with a keen interest in cave Clawson, M. and J. Knetsch. Economics of tourism management believe that the resource Outdoor Recreation, John Hopkins Press, New shoul? provide a more valuable and meaningful York, 1966. experience for the cave tourist. For this reason Jennings, J.N. "How Well Off is Australia for Caves and Karst?-A Brief Geomorphic Estimate"; incr asing emphasis should be given to inter� � Paper delivered at 10th Biennial Conference pret,ng the educational, historic, scientific of Australian Speleological Federation, 1974: cultural and natural values of this resource'. McHarg, I. Design with Nature, Natural History It would seem important that in addition to �ress, New York, 1969 (paperback edition, 1971). ay, The interpreti,:ig the karst landscape in a more mean­ Skinner, A.O. Mass Recreation at Ida B Development nian College ingful way, the tourist should be made aware of Exit Cave; Tasma of Advanced Education, Hobart, 1973.

HISTORY 228 AUSTRALIAN NATURAL Photo By Courtesy ol NSW Dept. of Tourism

Two tourists admire a minaret in one L. Reider of the caves at Jenolan, NSW. These stalagmites obtain their unusual form by the dripping of solution from stalactites above.

Accumulations of rubbish in Earls Cave, South Australia.

VOLUME 18 NUMBER 6 �

Chillogoe • '• Coves

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Koonoldo Cove Cockleb,ddy Cove .J,:.warblo'C1'i'.e, Nullomullong Cave: ',(Ve�bobby Cove

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CAVE SITES

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